there’s a difference between time passing and someone becoming.
the world often conflates the two — as if motion alone implies direction, as if surviving another season must mean you’ve grown. but becoming is not a consequence of time. it’s not passive. it’s not democratic. not everyone who continues, deepens.
most merely persist.
they get older, not sharper. they harden, but not in the way metals do in fire — not refined, just brittle. easy to snap, loud when broken. and they speak with the certainty of people who have endured, forgetting that enduring is not the same as understanding.
it’s not enough to be aged. wine can age and still taste like vinegar.
i’ve met people who collect years like property deeds, expecting reverence for accumulation. their wisdom is recited, not lived. it reeks of self-help posts and borrowed lines, pressed into their vocabulary like dried flowers — pretty, but dead.
they will tell you things like “i’ve seen it all.”
they haven’t.
they’ve just seen the same thing many times and mistaken that repetition for insight. and they say it with a sort of weary pride, not knowing it’s despair dressed as experience.
true becoming is arithmetic, yes — but not the kind that counts days.
it’s subtraction. the shedding of ego. the silent removal of illusions. it’s standing in front of what you once swore was right and saying, i was wrong.
it’s algebra too — solving for what the hell you actually believe, and what’s just been inherited noise.
and sometimes it’s pure calculus — ugly, complex, full of friction. but necessary if you’re ever going to learn how to curve toward something more honest.
and maybe that’s what most people fear. not change itself, but the labor of it. the embarrassment of shedding old skins under the eyes of those who knew you when you wore them proudly. the awkwardness of becoming in public. so instead, they ossify. they crystallize their persona and call it growth. but it’s just armor. and armor, left on too long, becomes a coffin.
so no, i don’t care how long you’ve been here.
show me what you’ve done with the time.
and not with your résumé, but with your convictions. your silence in rooms where you should’ve spoken. your voice in moments where it cost you. show me the math of who you are now — and let’s see if it balances.