PERSPECTIVAL SPECTACLE

If you think of everything you can feel,
everything you can see,
everything you can hear
as a sample,

a complete snapshot frozen in time,
a spectrum extending in all directions -

then maybe there isn’t a true timeline at all.

Maybe nothing is actually moving.

And if that’s the case, if each moment is already whole -
then what causes the ripple?

What makes one moment feel connected to the next,
like pixels sitting beside each other?

Why are we connected enough to remember?

I’m loosely borrowing an idea from the speaker Alex O’Connor -
thinking of life hierarchically.

I don’t think this is what he meant,
but it’s helped me look at time differently.

If everything is already complete,
then the universe isn’t changing.

But experience still feels like motion.

So maybe reality isn’t unfolding -
maybe our access to it is.

Maybe something is scanning.
Reading adjacent samples.
Stitching moments together.

Maybe memory isn’t storage -
maybe it’s overlap.

The residue left where one moment bleeds into the next.

And then there’s the question I can’t shake:

What holds the water?
What holds the glass?
What holds the hand?
What holds the body?
What holds spacetime?

Every answer pushes the question one level higher.

Maybe that’s not a failure in my understanding.

Maybe that’s the structure.

No bottom layer.

Just relationships holding other relationships.

And if that’s true,
then time isn’t fundamental.

It’s relational.

Not something we move through -
but something that appears
when enough moments are connected.

by Justin Morris (peace!)