Here is a way to think of life as energy;

As mobile organisms, this sentient interface our body has with its situation functions as sequence of perceptions, in order to navigate, so our sense of time is as the present going past to future, yet the evident reality is that activity and the resulting change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

There is no dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it. Causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect.

Energy is conserved, because it manifests this presence, creating time, temperature, pressure, color and sound. Frequencies and amplitudes, rates and degrees.

So the energy, as this presence, goes past to future, because the patterns generated come and go, future to past. Energy drives the wave, the fluctuations rise and fall. No tiny strings necessary.

Consciousness also goes past to future, while the perceptions, emotions and thoughts giving it form and structure go future to past. It's the digestive system processing the energy, feeding the flame, the nervous system sorting the patterns, information, with the circulation system as feedback in the middle.

Lives also go birth to death, future to past, as life moves onto the next generation shedding the old, past to future.

Galaxies are energy radiating out, as structure coalesces in.