You can't beat reality, but it's useful to have some grasp of it. Three basic observations;
1) We are mobile organisms, which necessitates this sequential process of perception, so we think of time as the present moving past to future, but the reality is that 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 is the present, not some dimensionless point. As process, it goes past to future, while the patterns generated go future to past.
With the wave, the energy drives it, while the fluctuations rise and fall.
Consciousness goes past to future, while thoughts go future to past. Though it is the gut processing the energy, feeding the flame, while the head just sorts the information. Motor and steering. So don't ignore what the gut tells you. The head just knows what is past. Which is why it isn't in control of your immediate motor functions. It just tries to make sure future reactions are better informed. Not all desires are healthy, nor all decisions wise.
2) A spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. Though only children are allowed to just revel in sentience.
While monotheism is politically useful for getting everyone to shut up and listen to the Big Guy, or at least his representatives, conflating the ideal with the absolute creates the belief ideals should be beyond question, but since most are usually pretty naive, it creates lots of conflict. The Ancients identified monotheism with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god.
Democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures, as that was how the Ancients framed the diverse, multicultural elements of society. Rome adopted Christianity to solidify the Empire and shed any remnants of the Republic. When the West went back to more populist forms of government, it required separation of church and state, culture and civics.
Basically civilization runs on bullshit and the best you can do is to enjoy the show and not get run over too quickly.
3) Money is the social contract that enables large societies to function, not a commodity to mine from society. We are these linear, tactile, goal oriented creatures, in a cyclical, reciprocal, feedback generated reality, so while markets need money to circulate, people see it as the signal to extract and store. While Econ 101 says money is both medium of exchange and store of value, a medium is dynamic, while a store is static. Blood is a medium, fat is a store.
We own a medium like we own the section of road we are using, or the air and water flowing through our bodies.
Since it functions as a contract, the asset is backed by a debt, so storing the asset requires generating debt.
Left unmediated, this creates a centripetal effect, as positive feedback draws the asset to the center, while negative feedback pushes the debt to the edges. "Those who have are given, while those who have not are taken from." The Ancients used debt jubilees to reset this, but the modern world has postponed the day of reckoning through geographic expansion, colonialism, industrialization and massive public debt.
The secret sauce of Capitalism is public debt backing private wealth. When governments can't issue any more, private equity will buy up the remaining public assets and we get real oligarchy, until everything does totally fall apart and we start over again.
Cheers.
