Back to basics

Under the Morning Sun. Hulu Langat, Malaysia, June 2026

Have you noticed the amount of information we are feeding to our brains daily? It starts the moment we wake up from sleep. Ten emails, two-minute scroll through three social media platforms, ten reels, two youtube videos plus three advertisements each. Imagine your brain as a big round globe, how each small section light up as it processes each piece of information. A good morning message triggers joy, immediate followed by a rejection email that triggers disappointment, and then a deadline notification triggers anxiety, paired with a travelling reel that triggers resentment. We bombard our nervous system even before jumping from bed to start our day. We also multitask everything throughout the day. We always have more than 10 things to do, so we try to squeeze as many things together as possible.

I think it is easy to rush. It gives the image that “we are doing our best”, “we are surviving”. But we rarely stop to think what is this “best”? What are we trying to survive from? Are we living under threats all day long, and what are the threats? When we run, what are we running away from? And ultimately, HOW REAL are these threats? These are explorative questions that are extremely important to ask ourselves. I mean, if you are running for your lives all day and night, exhausted, you need to at least know what is chasing after you right?

Let’s go back to the body for a minute. Feel the shoulder muscles tensed up. Feel your jaw and tongue hardening. Feel your brows tightening. Feel the stomach cavity compressing. Feel the sore in your feet. Feel the skin feeling the surrounding temperature and humidity in the air.

I think it is a waste that our senses have evolved to be so developed, yet we are so used to numbing all of them. When was the last time you really tasted every bite of your foods with your taste buds, without distraction? When was the last time you feel your diaphragm moves as you breathe? When was the last time you trace an emotion to a thought?

There is a concept that says time is actually relative. One minute is close to nothing when you are watching a youtube video, but is excruciatingly slow when you do a plank. If this is true, then for people who are worried that time is running out, why not stretch it to slow it down? Stretch it by mindfully feeling each and every second. Stretch it by living in each and every moment.

So this is my experiment. I want to know if I don’t run through the day, if I let myself feel my senses in everything I do, if I breathe slowly, do I end up with less or more time?