Here is a “physical” way to arrange “it.”

Think of reality as energy radiating out, while form coalesces in. With everything existing in the tension between.

Galaxies are radiation expanding out, while mass coalesces in.

We have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy manifesting and propelling us, while the central nervous system sorts and further distills the forms, referees the emotions bubbling up and orders the relationship between the two.

Any object is manifest by the energy, while the form arises from the limits of this energy, relative to its context.

We are mobile, intentional organisms, with a narrative based culture, so we experience our reality as a sequence of events and naturally think of time as the point of the present, moving past to future, but the reality is that change turns future to past. Potential, actual, residual. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

There is no “dimension” of time, because the past is consumed by the present, in order to inform and drive it. Causality and conservation of energy.

The “present” isn’t so much a dimensionless point between past and future, so much as it is the state of this “conserved” energy. As it is the dynamics of this energy creating the sequence of time.

So time is an effect, like temperature, pressure, color, etc. We could use ideal gas laws to correlate volume with temperature and pressure, but no one calls them the 5th and 6th dimensions of space, because they are only foundational to our emotions, bodily functions and environment, not the sequence of thought.

The left, cause and effect logical hemisphere of the brain is analogous to a clock/ruler, while the right emotional, intuitive side is to a thermostat/barometer.

Thought is a cycle between reductionism and contextualization.

Different clocks can run at different rates simply because they are separate actions. Think frequency and metabolism. The fact that much of human history has been about getting everyone following the same narrative, playing by the same rules, using the same measures, chasing after the same goals, etc, one might think there is a universal time, but there is rabbit time, turtle time, tree time, etc. When everyone is playing the same game, it becomes a race and everyone is on rabbit time, but the turtle is still plodding along, long after the rabbit has died.

Consequently the process/energy generating the patterns goes past to future, while the patterns go future to past. Consciousness goes past to future, while thoughts go future to past. Lives go birth to death, while life goes onto the next generation, shedding the old. Products go start to finish, while the production line goes the other way, consuming material and expelling product. The patterns define and direct the process. Motor and steering.

Thoughts are like waves. They are only fully formed, as they are cresting, much like the frequency and amplitude are the definition and limit of the energy that is the wave. So we only really see a reality that is at its most clear, as the energy manifesting it has started to recede. It is our emotions and intuition which feel the wave/energy coming on. The thermostat/barometer.

So our world is that tension between the anarchy of desire and the tyranny of judgement. The heart and the head. Reaching for the potential and sorting the residual. Wanting our cake and eating it too.