When Time Slows Down

Not long ago I wrote myself a note:

“Notice how the more you practice playing music, the slower it seems to go.”

Now, the actual timing of the track doesn’t slow down. 75 bpm is 75 bpm. BUT, my perception of how much time I have to play a fill in the turnaround or a scale run seems to expand the more I practice.

This is such a cool thing. If y

ou’re a sports fan you’ve certainly heard athletes and analysts talk about the game beginning to “move quickly”. Especially when the pressure is on. And when it does, the athlete is usually going to make mistakes.

Music.

Writing.

Football.

Golf.

At first, everything happens too fast.

When we're learning a song, we're trying to survive the notes.

When you're writing, you're trying to get the thought down before it disappears.

When you're learning your golf swing, roughly seventeen things cross your mind in the less than 1.5 seconds it takes to make your move.

Then you practice.

And something strange happens.

The activity starts to slow down.

Not literally.

But you begin seeing more. It’s like you camera’s frame rate has increased.

You hear things in the music you couldn't hear before.

You notice a weak sentence before it reaches the page.

You start playing golf instead of playing “golf swing”.

Then, shortly after writing that note, I heard Robert Greene talking with Andrew Huberman about a similar idea.

Greene discussed mastery, repetition, and how deep engagement can change our experience of time.

I had one of those moments where you think:

Okay. I should defintely pay attention to this.

Practice Creates Space

Early on in learning, we're overwhelmed by an avalanche of new information.

Everything feels urgent because we don't yet know what matters.

Practice begins seperating the signal from the noise.

The musician stops thinking about every note and starts hearing the phrase.

The writer stops obsessing over individual words and starts feeling rhythm.

The golfer stops thinking about positions and starts visualizing the shot.

Experience creates space.

And inside that space, perception improves.

You have more time to notice.

More time to choose.

More time to respond instead of react.

That sounds a lot like wellness to me.

Maybe This Is What Mastery Feels Like

We often think expertise means knowing more.

But maybe expertise is actually simply seeing more slowly.

When attention deepens, the clock changes.

An hour can disappear, while individual moments feel strangely spacious a drawn out.

Maybe practice doesn't just make us better.

Maybe it changes how much of the experience we're able to see.

And that idea probably has to reache beyond golf swings and guitar chords.

A craft.

A relationship.

A difficult conversation.

A problem you're trying to solve.

Your own thoughts.

Some things become clearer only when we stay with them long enough for them to slow down.

Not because some weird double slit quantum physics time continuum changed.

But because we did.

Take this question with you:

What in my life will become clearer when I stay with it long enough for it to slow down?