Narrative time is an effect.

Because we are mobile organisms, we have a sequential process of perception, which we are constantly sorting and ordering, in order to navigate. Then, as humanity, we've been telling stories about our journeys for hundreds of thousands of years and building civilizations out of the collected knowledge. So the basis of our understanding of our reality is this narrative flow, from past to future.

Though the cause is that change turns future to past.

Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns. There is no literal "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 is what is present. Its changing configuration is time.

So the process goes past to future, while the patterns generated go future to past.

As consciousness goes past to future, while thoughts and emotions go future to past.

As products go start to finish, while the production line goes the other way, consuming material and expelling product. As the projector light goes from one frame to the next, past to future, while the images go future to past.

Because of our sequential process of perception, the assumption is that one thing leads to another, yet causality is energy exchange/tranfiguration, not sequence. Yesterday, didn't cause today, the sun shining on a spinning planet creates this effect called "days."

So the reality is energy flashing around and interacting, fading, coalescing, etc. Creating form, information, patterns.

Because we have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy driving us on, while the central nervous system sorts through the forms precipitating out, it creates a focus on and bias toward the information, the effect, rather than the energy, the cause.

Consider that what drives a wave is the energy, yet what we perceive are the fluctuations and undulations, the frequencies and amplitudes. What limits and defines. Time, temperature, pressure, color, sound. Which are most clear, as they crest, thus this sense of the present as a point between past and future.

Galaxies are energy radiating to infinity, while the forms coalesce toward equilibrium, radiating the energy back out as they do, as the energy coalesces into form, even as it fades. Limits and definition.

We are driven by our desires, appetite, curiosity, attention, security, wealth, power, happiness, gratification.

Yet once we attain them, they crest and fade, so we are constantly seeking more. Wanting our cake and eating it too. Both the perfect form and transcending all form.

Desire and judgement, heart and head.

Somewhere between everything fading out and everything cancelling out.