Timeline

Ever since before it even existed, people have been rather curious about a thing we’ve come to know as “time.” People have pondered it, postulated about it, proved and disproved it, and dreamed about it. Some people have too much of it, others never have enough of it, and at the end most people want more of it.

Yet what exactly IS time? Is it an actual force that holds the universe together, like gravity? Is it a law that we can someday find a way to cheat (such as using lift on airplanes to counter gravity)? If it can truly go forward, can it go backwards?

I’ve been a bit of a sci-fi fan most of my life, thanks to my dad. I was also fairly interested and good at science in school. I’ve heard theories and supposed facts, but I was pondering the whole topic of time today and I’ll give you my take on it.

I believe time is a fixed point. In essence, the only thing that really exists is what exists in the present. Although the present is constantly changing and evolving, it’s all that’s truly there. The only thing that has any genuine substance is the present.

What we call “time” is simply a unit of measurement that was made up for us linearly minded humans to measure the distance between events. Just as you use a tape measure to find out how many feet it is from one side of a house to another, you use a clock to measure the distance from one event to another.

When you use a ruler or tape measure to measure something, the only thing that actually exists is the thing that you are measuring. Along the same line, the only thing that exists (or once existed or will exist) in reference to time is the events being used as starting and ending points.

Due to the fact that I don’t think time exists in a manner of physical force or reality, there is nothing to travel on or in, which is why I think time travel will never be anything more than the subject of fairy tales.

The strange thing is that while I think this is all true, I did think of one thing that IS capable of changing, redefining, and traveling through “time.” There actually is something in the universe that can give time a physical presence in which to travel, or to stop.

The one thing capable of such a feat is the human mind.

Everyone has experienced how sometimes a minute can seem like an eternity or how a whole month can fly by like nothing. Everyone knows what it’s like to be caught up in the memory of a past event so completely that all but their physical body was actually back there. The human mind can anticipate and look forward to events that have yet to happen.

In a way, the very organ that makes us think in linear terms is the very organ that allows us (to a certain extent) to break the constraints of the present.

Anyhow, I have no clue why I wrote about this. It seems kind of stupid (feel free to agree there if you want). I guess that’s what happens when I have a whole weekend and can’t do anything.

*
“There is no forever
Just today.”
*
Killswitch Engage