The space between…

Short pages about emotions and connection

 This week I built two short interactive pages. They are small, but they come from an idea I keep returning to, so I wanted to share both the pages and the thinking behind them.

Why

  We tend to believe we simply react. Something happens, and we are angry, or hurt, or anxious, as if there were no gap between the event and our response. But there is a gap. Between a trigger and an emotion, and between an emotion and a reaction, there is a small space. And in that space lives something precious: the freedom to choose.

  I did not want to explain that in paragraphs. I wanted to make it visible, to let you watch it unfold. And the more I sat with the idea, the more I realized it has two faces. There is the space within us, where we find a bit of calm an choice. And there is the space between us, where that same calm decides whether our words pull people apart or bring them closer. So the project became two chapters.

What

  Chapter 1, The Space Between, is about how a single emotion unfolds, from trigger to emotion to reaction. One ordinary event, “my partner is late,” forks into three different stories, each leading to a different emotion and a different response. The point you can feel by the end: the lever is not the event, it is the story we tell ourselves about it. Same trigger, different narrative, different outcome.

  Chapter 2, The Space Between Us, carries that into our relationships. Two people, drawn as two circles joined by a link. Under stress, the same words can wound or they can heal. You get to choose: react, and watch the exchange escalate until the link strains and breaks, or respond, and watch curiosity and care bring the two closer. It is the difference between reacting and responding, played out in front of you.

  Try them

  They take about five minutes each, and they animate as you scroll.

  – Chapter 1, The Space Between: https://emotional-timeline.martinphamdinh.workers.dev/?lang=en&theme=night

  – Chapter 2, The Space Between Us: https://emotional-timeline.martinphamdinh.workers.dev/chapter2?lang=en&theme=night

  I would genuinely welcome your reactions: what lands, what does not, and anything you would change.