I feel like I just conceptualized in my own head how/why time works (edit: found some flaws in the original idea that i address in the comments)

I think time and energy are one and the same. Time and heat are one and the same (if we make energy synonymous to heat).

So, for me, my spiritual practice is basically my honest pursuit of coming to better understand the universe. Time is a concept oft contemplated in a variety of different spiritual circles, as, for some reason, one comes to contemplate time and its mysteries — and have related realizations and epiphanies — when contemplating oneself/the inner mysteries.

A conclusion I’ve often arrived to when asking myself “what is time?” is that time is a measurement of change. At the atomic level, one can only measure time by measuring how much change has occurred within any system. Again, at the atomic level, everything is always in flux, always moving, constantly. Even if you look at an object and it appears still, the closer you look, the more you realize that nothing is ever truly still. 

However, if that were not the case, and things were truly, at the atomic level, completely frozen, then time would also stand still. When things move, time passes; when things stay the same, time would also be frozen. Again, when I say “things,” I mean at the most microcosmic of levels possible.

So, in this way, time and change are one and the same. We measure time by measuring change; change is only possible through the passage of time, because time is change and change is time.

Now, if we consider in Einstein’s theory of special relativity how time dilation works, we learn that the closer one gets to the speed of light, the more time appears to slow down. An hour passed for someone traveling near the speed of light may be 7 years for the rest of humanity. In this way, they’ve accomplished time travel. 

This is also the case for gravity. The closer one is to an object with a massive gravitational pull, such as a black hole, the more time appears to slow down for them relative to others not near that source of gravity. An hour passed for someone near a black hole may be 7 years for the rest of humanity. In this way, too, they’ve accomplished time travel. 

Let’s consider Einstein’s equation E = mc^2. The energy (e) of an object equals its mass (m) times the percentage of speed of light (c) squared. In this way, my premise appears to be substantiated. My premise was that the greater the energy of a given object, the faster time goes. Of course, in this theory of special relativity, the greater the mass or greater proximity to the speed of light an object is, time is said to “slow down” for them — however, consider yourself from the position of the person traveling near the speed of light or the person orbiting a black hole. If an hour passes for you, then you slow back down, or leave the pull of the black hole, and you go and join the rest of humanity, and find that 7 years passed within the span of an hour, did time appear to speed up for you? The answer is, of course, yes. To the rest of humanity, time passed slower, but to YOU, time passed quicker.

This, I think, seems to support my premise, that time and energy are one and the same, interrelated. If mass increases, one experiences time dilation. Additionally, if mass increases, according to Einstein’s equation, so too does energy. Consider too that if one’s proximity to c (lightspeed) increases, one experiences time dilation. Additionally, if one’s proximity to c increases, so too does energy, according to Einstein’s equation. Therefore, as energy increases, so too does the passage of time. For this reason, it would also hold true — if I am correct — that as energy decreases, so too does the passage of time decrease. 

Energy = time.

This, I think, is how humanity might accomplish time travel one day — through the modulation of velocity and/or mass. I don’t know if travel back in time would be possible?

I also wonder, then, if “becoming light,” and hitting c — widely considered impossible — would also involve exiting time?

Anyway, again, to rephrase: my assertion at the beginning was that time is energy and energy is time. The more energy, the more time — the less energy, the less time. No energy = no passage of time at all. If you go back and read from the beginning, that’s basically what I said.

So, then, if you look at Einstein’s equation, we learn that — for example — as velocity increases, so too does energy, and so too does time.

This, I think, might prove that time and energy work in proportion to one another. What if escaping death is about becoming light? If you hit c, you are technically light, and then the passage of time would become 0, because you can’t slow down your passage of time relative to the rest of the world any more