"or that we’re quickened dust,"

Or that we are "thickened light," as Emerson put it.

There may be no physical aether, but it would seem the frame with the longest ruler and fastest clock would be closest tot he equilibrium of the vacuum, the unmoving void of absolute zero. Through which light travels at C, thus at C, the clock and ruler are no more.

Energy travels toward the future, while the patterns in manifes fade into the past.

As light radiates toward infinity, while form coalesces toward equilibrium. Both entropic.

Galaxies as cosmic convection cycles.

We fluctuate somewhere inbetween everything cancelling out and everything fading out.

Our desires carrying us outward and onward, as our thoughts coalesce inward, toward some grand but empty equilibrium.

Without the ups and downs, it's a flatline.

Time is frequency. Events are amplitude.