I suggested in an earlier post that time is not a lava flow that is liquid and dynamic until it reaches the past, at which point it hardens to rock.

If not lava, then what? How does the past keep flowing when it’s no longer present (except as the “present of the past”)?

Perhaps (very much perhaps) something like this: Time flows from the future into the present, where we are moving toward the future. We in the present catch it (or most or some of it), and then the past moves with us toward the future. As more future comes to us, we catch more and more past in the present (with leakage). The present has to expand to hold all the ever-accumulating past (more and bigger archives, more memorials, more holidays).

I’m thinking of a superhero (or video game hero), walking toward a villain. The villain keeps throwing flaming darts at him. Some he sees coming, and is able to capture; some surprise him, but he’s still able to catch them; some surprise him, and he can only dodge them; some hit their mark but, hey, he’s a superhero so he keeps moving forward.

The ones he catches, he puts into his superhero-magic pouch that keeps getting bigger as he puts more stuff in it. He’s gaining ammunition, so that when he gets to the villain he’s armed to the teeth.

A picture, and a crude one. But maybe useful.