Physics hints at this. The universe doesn’t tick like a clock; it shifts. Particles move, decay, collide. Stars burn, fade, collapse. Entropy tallies these changes. Where disorder increases, we call it “the arrow of time.” But maybe there is no arrow, only the record of transformation.
If so, then what is a human being? In a universe ruled by entropy, we are improbable outposts of order. Against the trend toward chaos, we assemble patterns: language, memory, civilization. Every thought is order carved from noise, every life a temporary dam holding back the flood.
This isn’t a violation of the conservation of energy, but it feels close. Energy cannot be created or destroyed — yet we reshape it into improbable coherence. From the randomness of molecules, we extract rhythm, narrative, even love.
So perhaps time is not a river carrying us forward. It’s a story we tell about change. Entropy is the plot, and we — strange animals of order — are the moments of reversal, the brief pauses where chaos folds back on itself and makes something worth remembering.
We are products of entropy, yes. But in our ordering, we become its contradiction — sparks of structure in a dissolving cosmos.