There is no time.
I have always been intrigued, fascinated, and engrossed with the concept of time – only to realize that my understanding of it is flat-out incorrect. (I was naked dressed in pride: I kept on swatting a playful mosquito with both of my hands, but it continuously eluded me.)
Time is not actually linear. There is no beginning and end. The past is not yet finished, the present extends beyond now, and the future is not far away. Everything is happening everywhere all the time. All realities are existing all at once.
I was obsessed with the idea of being a time traveller to access the best possible version of my life. My teenage and young adulthood years were brimmed with films, books, poems, and music about time. I even seriously dreamt of becoming a professional historian and/or oracle to satiate the inexplicable fetish for reincarnations and prophesies.
Recently, I have discovered that I can indeed play with time and space. Even if I do it unconsciously, it easily bends to my favor. The past and future are not distant at all. It sounds too good to be true, so the caveat must be equally revealed. In this process, my energy would be gobbled, and my identity would wobble. Abusing this power led me to find myself sulking in a constant state of worry and anxiety. I think they call it temporal discontinuity: once the order of past, present, and future is malleable, the sense of self is inadvertently crushed and challenged. Thus, it is of paramount importance to harness this power consciously and responsibly.
My ego would love to claim that it is only I who can stretch myself in multiple timelines and places, but this power is simple yet profound, and bizarre yet not uncommon. Time and space can be warped through mere reminiscences, musings, and imaginations.
I travel in time and in space through the energy that I trade from my thoughts, words, and actions.
Yes, it could be by being lost in playful reverie or by being stuck in eerie catastrophizing.
I do not just live where my body is physically planted. I continuously weave my self with a so-called "past" that is not yet finished, and with a so-called "future" that is not yet set in stone. The logic is similar to the concept of quantum entanglement in physics: even if two quantum particles are separated by light years, they still continuously affect and influence each other. Einstein famously described it as "spooky action at a distance."
My past, present, and future are entangled. My multiple selves can always be accessed at any given point in time.
For the past, I remember; for the future, I envisage. My memories are always rewritten, and my goals are always reimagined. Revisiting the past is healing, and envisioning the future is inspiring. Transcending the linear concept of time reminds me that I am not a victim of my past nor a slave of my future. What happened still helps me grow, and what will come pulls me forward. My experiencing self is guided by my remembering self to stop my fatalistic self from sabotaging my autonomous self.
It is essentially preventing the tragedy experienced by the Time Traveller in H.G. Wells' Time Machine:
"Then suddenly the humor of the situation came into my mind: the thought of the years I had spent in study and toil to get into the future age, and now my passion of anxiety to get out of it. I had made myself the most complicated and the most hopeless trap that ever a man devised. Although it was at my own expense, I could not help myself. I laughed aloud."
But it is also like awakening Harry in Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro:
"He knew at least twenty good stories from out there and he had never written one. Why?"
The balance is perfectly depicted in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist:
"The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon."
My best life is right here, right now – brought by my past, present, and future that are all existing at once simultaneously.
I think this is also the hidden meaning of the Bible passage in Revelation 1:8 (ERV): "The Lord God says, 'I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the one who is, who always was, and who is coming. I am the All-Powerful.'"
Peace truly lies in transcending time.
