How did the city that felt so huge in childhood become so small?
On February 23, 2026, at 15:07, I wrote a short note while sitting on a bus:
Sitting on the bus right now, slowly heading from the village into the city. Looking at this city that used to feel impossibly huge, I suddenly realize it’s actually just this size. (Translated from original Chinese note)
When I was young and living in my village, there was a small shop that served wontons, soy milk, and egg-filled flatbread. Eating there felt like visiting somewhere very fashionable. Getting into the city wasn’t easy either: I had to ride an electric scooter three or four kilometers to catch a bus, or hail a long-distance coach by the roadside for ten yuan to head to the Weifang Small Commodities Market. Just that single trip could keep me happy for a long time.
The city didn’t suddenly shrink over the years. What changed was my travel range, my daily routine, and my perspective. It is precisely because a meal or a bus ride is no longer a big deal that I came to realize some part of the past had moved on.
Around those same few days, I also jotted down a couple of thoughts about “time.”
On February 15, 2026, at 23:53, I wrote a line in flomo:
What we perceive is never time itself, but only the flow of things and the shifting of the world. (Translated from original Chinese note)
At the time, I felt I couldn’t directly see abstract time—only daylight fading, water cooling down, leaves changing color, or a familiar person sounding a bit more tired when speaking. A few days later, I kept pushing that thought and wrote that time was just a human-made concept and that only matter in motion truly exists.
Looking back now, that second conclusion jumped to way too absolute a claim. What time actually is and whether it exists independently of change are deeply discussed in science and philosophy. As the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) notes in How Do You Measure a Second, physics deals with measuring the precise interval between events. My notes were just my own subjective impressions, not scientific facts.
Still, that first line captured my intuition accurately at the moment. Time doesn’t stop just because we write a journal entry—that afternoon still passed, and the bus still arrived at its stop.
Without those few lines written down back then, some details might be hard to remember clearly now. Looking back at the note, I can at least see what words I chose and how I viewed things at the time.
The things most likely to fade over time are often what felt completely ordinary back then: the route walked every day, how people nearby talked, or a small shop before it closed down.
If you ever feel like writing a note to the future, take a look at What to write in a letter to your future self. If you aren’t sure how to begin, 24 journal prompts offers a few simple starting points.
A simple record can’t make today stay. When I read those lines again in the future, I’ll probably still remember that bus ride, and remember why I felt, back then, that the city had somehow grown smaller.