What if we consider this reality as energy and form? For instance, the wave is both energy and form. The energy is what drives and manifests it, while the form defines it. Energy is dynamic, while form is relatively static, given it defines and delineates.

Galaxies are energy radiating out, as form coalesces in.

Our bodies have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy driving us on, along with a central nervous system to sort through the forms coalescing and precipitating out.

Society is the raw social energies pushing out, as civil and cultural forms coalesce in.

Youth and age. Liberal and conservative. Heart and head. Motor and steering.

Yet the energy is conserved, so it simply transitions to new forms, as the old forms lose energy and dissipate.

Which is time. As mobile organisms, experiencing a sequence of static perceptions and narrating them to one another, we think of it as the present moving past to future, but 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, in order to inform it. Causality and conservation of energy.

The energy is “conserved,” because there is no physical past for it to recede into, or physical future for it to arrive from, as it is the changing configuration of this energy that creates time in the first place.

So process, the energy, churns along, from past to future forms, while these patterns rise and fall, future to past.

Consciousness goes past to future, while thoughts go future to past.

Lives go birth to death, while life shuffles onto the next generation, shedding the old.

Products go start to finish, while the production line points the other way, consuming material and expelling product.

The feedback is the patterns define and direct the process, such as the decisions individuals make, or the success of products.

Thermodynamics. Feedback. Karma.