The Arrow of Time

The Arrow of Time | April 28, 2026

Here, today, and Jordan, also today? 

Recently, I read about new research indicating that time may not be a given nor a fundamental aspect of reality. I don't fully understand it, but what I understood was that time is an emergent condition of the universe, not a law or absolute underlying reality. The Arrow of Time, which is so obvious as to be a given in our small human lives, may be nothing more than an illusion developed by the framework we operate within.  

I have been in a writing slump. A compulsion to say something exists within me, but the fodder is weak and uninspiring. A writer's block, so to speak. Vague thoughts swirl, aspiring to be brought to life, but bringing them forth is difficult. The news about time spurred a lethargic interest in typing, so I'm going with it.  

I think a lot about time, and Time. I probably come back and dwell on the concept 4 - 5 days a week. It's not healthy. I lay awake and think about how time slips out of my grasp as I move on the conveyer belt of life, towards an inevitable Death. I think about how the entirety of my life, apart from this single moment, exists only in memories. How can I even know what is real? I think about - or perhaps remember? - how the future will exist for me, and I can sense it in a vague sort of way, but from my current stance, it is unknowable, until it is bright and fresh and here, before it slips into the past and deconstructs into the Ether of time. 

I read about block universes recently, too. That idea resonates with me, and I hope it represents reality. I guess it makes no difference one way or another if it does or doesn't, but the thought that we are moving along a pre-ordained pathway which does exist but it not perceivable by us until the moment we inhabit each moment... that is reassuring to me. Some may call into question how this relates to the concept of free will, but I have already written off free will as an invention. Life and its various reactions developing as a result of the vastly infinite series of inputs makes more sense to me. It is only the fact that we cannot conceive of the unimaginably huge number of variables that we develop the concept of "free will". So... block universes. We are but a slice of entropy, moving along a preordained path which was and is and will be knowable, if only we had the ability to perceive it. 

Perhaps I am still in Jordan, looking at that beautiful and bleak ancient landscape and realizing how close we are to a mere two or three thousand years prior, when the current inventions of religion and governance where still forming. It is but the blink of a cosmic eye. 

Perhaps I am currently looking at the glory of Petra in its heyday, where none conceive that the entropy of the sands of time will dull the facades from the sandstone cliffs and render the metropolis into a tourist mecca, complete with golf carts and selfie sticks with which to aid the gawping before the sunburned masses retreat into ancient caverns retrofitted with AC and alcohol on tap. 

Perhaps I am imagining my travel to Jordan as a yet-unfulfilled plan. I'm looking forward to visiting, and don't have any memories of what I will come to experience. With the glory of the human mind, I can put myself into the position of imagining that I have not yet been. With the trip now in the past, what difference does it make if it is, was, or is yet to be? Time knows not. Maybe I, too, can live in a state where all possibilities are superimposed. 

Perhaps I occupy but a slice in the great cheese block that is the universe. The past, present, and future exist in one vast hunk of swiss, and my trajectory pushes me onward through the wriggling tunnel of air holes that permeate the block. If only I knew how, I could turn around and travel back to a previous point in my lonely little tunnel. I could revisit the people and places that exist in absolute reality, but only exist in this current form's memory... 

In the limitation of this present form, I have no choice but to occupy my singular spot, looking darkly forward at where I may yet go, and reminisce hazily on those places I have already been. For whether the block universe and the Arrow of Time may or may exist, and may or may not be accurate descriptions of the laws of reality, time nonetheless moves forward within my reality and my perception. Entropy is a hard law, at least in this lifetime. Things fall apart, time moves on, and I have no choice but to comply.