One way to think about it is an inherent tension manifesting reality.

One of the points I keep making is that our concept of time is reversed. As mobile organisms, our experience is as a sequence of perceptions, logically arising from navigating. So we think of time as the point of the present, moving past to future. Physically though, it is change turning 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.

So energy is "conserved," because it is the present, with time as an effect of it being dynamic.

So the energy, as present and process, goes past to future, while the patterns generated go future to past.

Think in terms of a wave; The energy drives it, while the fluctuations rise and fall. So the energy will go onto other forms, while prior forms settle back to equilibrium. Consider both are entropic, energy fading to infinity, as form is cancelled by equilibrium. Galaxies are energy radiating out, as mass/form coalesces in.

Consciousness also goes past to future, while the perceptions, emotions and thoughts giving it definition go future to past. Though it is the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy, feeding the flame, while the central nervous system sorts the forms/information.

So we/our conscious impulse, are constantly seeking, yet any form we find, we have to either grow, or transcend. Life bubbling up. So we are constantly pushing our own envelope, as it pushes back.