watching a movie. going to church. racing a car. surfing the web. visiting a museum. playing a sport. all are ways to experience the relief of being displaced across time and space.
the present is where what is happening breaks into the already happened, like water pouring on hard concrete.
we bend this arc outwards by focusing on what happens next. engrossed by a picture, story or game, it is not just our pulse which quickens but our internal clock. we experience time as flowing faster when we are lost in that future moment.
when we approach what is coming we experience the joy of what can be done rather than that which can no longer be changed.
as with steering a motorcycle at high speeds, one looks ahead, to the curve that is emerging. in chess or in soccer, one anticipates the moves possible at a time to come. through intoxication, we impair our ability to retain what just happened, blocking our short term memory in order to regard only what is just emerging; what is still possible.
even nostalgia throws us into a future tense, as we replay a sequence of events in order to experience what came next.