I used to rush through my mornings — checking emails while brushing my teeth and making mental to-do lists in the shower. Days started to look the same. Then, after rereading Henri Bergson's philosophy of duration, I had an epiphany: the same fifteen minutes could feel thin and forgettable or surprisingly substantial, depending on how I approached them.
Bergson is often dismissed as an abstract metaphysician, but he actually provides practical tools. His critique of "spatialized time," or treating moments as interchangeable units on a timeline, and his emphasis on lived, qualitative duration suggest concrete ways to reshape important elements of daily life.
Below are two experiments drawn from his work that changed how I experience time.
The Problem: We've Confused Time With Space
Bergson's core argument is that we measure time as we do space, by dividing it into uniform units that sit side by side. While this method works for train schedules, it misses something fundamental: real experience does not work this way.
When you recall yesterday's conversation, for example, the memory is colored by your mood this morning, what has happened since then, and older associations. The past and present interpenetrate — each memory reshapes your current perception, and each new experience reorganizes your understanding of the past.
This is duration: a continuous, qualitative flow in which moments blend together rather than accumulating like blocks. Bergson distinguished between quantitative and qualitative multiplicity. Quantitative multiplicity involves counting objects, while qualitative multiplicity involves states of consciousness that blend and interpenetrate.
Duration is qualitative. The duration is heterogeneous, with each moment having its own texture. It's also cumulative in that the past doesn't vanish, but actively shapes the present from within.
We habitually translate our experiences into spatial metaphors. "Spending" and "saving" time, for example. While these metaphors are useful for communication, they can be detrimental when internalized as the only legitimate way to experience time. We judge our own lives based on external metrics. For example, breakfast becomes "too long" or "quick enough" rather than being experienced on its own terms.
Moments contain layers that uniform units of clock time cannot capture.
There's something else going on below the surface: a substantial duration that you can learn to sense directly.
Practice One: Sense Duration in Transitions
Choose a common activity, such as walking from your desk to the kitchen or waiting thirty seconds in an elevator. Approach it without checking the clock.
Instead of rushing through it, pay attention to its qualitative dimensions. Does the moment feel short? Does it feel endless? Allow memories to surface on their own. Let your anticipation color the present moment without jumping ahead to the future.
The interval won't correspond to the time measured by a clock. Sometimes thirty seconds shrinks to nothing. Other times, it elongates. You're sensing duration.
Then, capture the essence of the interval in one short description. Focus on its character, not its length. The specific phrase matters less than the focus on quality over quantity.
Practice Two: Create Without Goals
Set aside fifteen minutes for an activity with no intended outcome. Take an impromptu walk and follow your impulses. Draw without a specific subject in mind. Write whatever comes to mind.
The goal is to notice when you try to control the outcome. Each time you catch yourself aiming for a predetermined result, pause. Then, follow your next impulse.
Bergson's vital impulse (élan vital) represents the creative tendency inherent in life. It is an ongoing improvisational capacity that generates new forms instead of mechanically recombining elements. For Bergson, evolution isn't just the selection of random mutations; it is a creative process that produces unpredictable variations.
Consciousness participates in this process. We don't merely process information. We have the ability to invent things that could not be predicted from what came before.
However, modern life inhibits this ability. We optimize, set goals, and measure progress. We treat creativity as problem-solving, identifying the desired outcome and working backward through the necessary steps. This approach assumes that the future is essentially predetermined.
Creating without predetermined goals enables us to achieve something new.
Eventually, this practice shows up elsewhere. For example, in conversations, problem-solving, and everyday decisions. This is not manufactured creativity. Rather, it is a natural responsiveness to life's open-ended flow.
What Changes
These practices haven't revolutionized my life. I still rush sometimes. Days still blend together. However, something important has changed.
I occasionally catch myself rushing and choose to do things differently. This awareness comes from practicing duration-sensing. Once you've experienced time as layered, the thin quality of clock time becomes apparent.
My decision-making has changed, too. I'm less inclined to force premature resolutions. I've learned to recognize when problems need time to evolve and when I'm hindering progress that's already underway.
This creative practice has introduced a different relationship to novelty. I have more patience with uncertainty. I'm more willing to follow lines of inquiry that don't immediately justify themselves.
Bergson believed that freedom does not consist of choosing from predetermined options, but rather of creating new possibilities through lived duration. We're genuinely free when our actions emerge from our accumulated experience rather than mechanical reactions.
Try thirty seconds of unmeasured attention or five minutes of creating without goals. These small actions will gradually transform your relationship with time. You will begin to inhabit moments rather than race through them.
Not as abstract doctrine, but as permission to experience time differently. That's what Bergson's philosophy offers.