The linear progression of time is a human construct.
Yes, the earth rotates around its axis every 24 hours, and it revolves around the sun every 365 days or so.
But if we divided the day into 36 hours, or 67 hours, the earth would still rotate at the same speed.
And if we divided the year into 17 days, or 428, the earth would still revolve around the sun at the same speed. We could even make a year equal 1.4 trips around the sun, not 1.0, and Nature wouldn’t be bothered one bit.
Nature is not concerned with time as we’ve defined it.
Nature is like Bill Murray in that movie, “Groundhog Day” – it is reliving the same cycles over and over. But unlike Bill Murray, that fact doesn’t stress Nature out. Nature seems to be cool with it.
So the idea that time progresses linearly, the idea that it starts out on the left side of an X-axis and moves steadily to the right, that’s a human thing.
Now, I’m not saying you should throw away your watch, ditch your 3:00 dentist appointment, and not show up for work tomorrow. The linear progression of time is a perfectly good way to organize the world, and it brings us humans a lot of benefits.
What I am saying is that as you participate in this system today, be aware that we humans have created it. It is opt-in. It is not mandatory.
When you remind yourself on a regular basis that one system you participate in is opt-in, not mandatory, you are a little more comfortable ditching other systems when they aren’t working for you.
By the way, I love philosophical discussions about time, even though they are a complete waste of time (no pun intended). In fact, here’s one of my favorite videos on YouTube…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km89X8zoJH0
In the video, Brian Cox, a British physicist, is trying to answer the question, “What time is it?”
I think he’s asking a very interesting question, but one that cannot be answered.
Maybe the reason time is so hard to figure out is that we humans created time, and when we try to step outside of ourselves to grapple with it, it disappears like a mirage. We can’t wrestle with it outside of our own heads, because it doesn’t exist outside of our own heads.
Perhaps the best answer to his question is just to stop asking the question. Besides, don’t you have a dentist appointment this afternoon?