I believe that most of us expect some kind of an end to time. We might believe that when this life ends, we’ll be transported into eternity, either a heaven or a hell or some sort of purgatory. We know that our lives end. And when they do, so will time, for us, if not for everyone else. Others – and the world – may continue in time for some time.

We may believe that the universe is a sort of physical constant, but that will end at some point. We may believe only in spacetime, and conceive of time as physical construct. But one day, when the universe ends, so will time itself.

I believe that time is an illusion, a metaphysical device constructed by our minds to slow things down, to measure events, to try to make a sense of a dream that occurred all at once, since in reality we exist outside of time. Eternity, therefore, is in and only in the moment. What this means is that time won’t end because it never began in the first place. So I we’re expecting time to end someday somehow, we’ll wait forever, since it never started in the first place.

It is we who extend this belief in time into an indefiniteness that won’t end until we finally realize that it never initiated its sequence and started all the clocks ticking in the first place. instead of seeing eternity as a ceaseless progression of moments – one to the next, the future becoming the present being eaten by consciousness and metabolized until it becomes the past – we need to conceive of eternity as this moment. This is the only escape from time, from its cruel march toward decay and death, which only results in a rebirth which only ends in more decay and more death.

In other words, time only ends when we realize that it never began. It only ceases when  we wake up from its ravages. You’ll notice that I used the word ‘when’ in the precious two sentences. This implies that time will end in the future. But since the future never arrives – it’s always out there waiting to happen – time won’t end in the future because my belief that ends then is just another investment in the reality of time. Time ends now. Since now is the only time there is, time has to end now. It can never end then, in some future that never comes.

It’s my decision to live now, to live in the now, that ends time. Only this.

© 2024 by Michael C. Just