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The Illusion of Time

  • graysonpitcock
  • Aug 27
  • 2 min read

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When we think about time, we usually envison something straigtforward: a straight line that runs from the past, through the present, into the future. Every second seems to push us further away from the past and closer to the future, but philosophers have questioned whether time really works this way. Einstein once wrote that the big difference between past, present, and future is only a “stubbornly persistent illusion.” According to relativity, all moments may already exist at once, and we only experience them in what seems like a sequence because of the way our minds perceive reality.


If that’s true, then the future is already out there and it is as real as your first day of school or the breakfast you ate this morning. This idea may feel unsettling because it poses a threat to the idea that we have volition over our actions. If the future already exists, "choices" are they merely the unfolding of something already written. Some people also may find this strangely reassuring: the idea that if the past is never lost, then the people and experiences we thought had slipped away still exist in some eternal sense. The best moments of your life are forever embedded in time. They remain even if we cannot revisit them.


This view of time shifts how we might live as well. We can see it as part of a vast and permanent landscape. Our task becomes to truly inhabit the expiriences of life while we’re within them. Awareness becomes about participating in what is already real. Perhaps meaning in life doesn’t come from racing against time but from learning how to walk through it deliberately, recognizing that nothing is ever truly gone, and everything that will be already waits for us.

 
 
 

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About Me

My name is Grayson Pitcock. I founded Philosophy Check, a philosophy blog and student discussion club.

I am a Bergen Catholic High School student and have spent most of my life living in Tenafly, which occupies five square miles in the northern end of New Jersey. With a 41.7% minority population, my hometown is diverse. Neighbors on my street speak Korean, Hebrew, Spanish, Hindi, and Russian. 

My family is multicultural. One side of my family, from the Midwest, has deep American roots dating back to the Revolutionary War, and the other side, from the East Coast, is a second-generation immigrant family of Korean ancestry. Although many aspects of my family upbringing may sound familiar, my multicultural background has enabled me to experience contrasting ideas, beliefs, and perspectives representing the diverse opinions of this vast country. Building relationships across differences happens nearly daily, both within and outside my family. 

I am interested in understanding how people can disagree profoundly yet still share space, community, and even friendship. Living in this environment has made me deeply curious about how people arrive at their beliefs, how truth is constructed and contested, and what it means to live ethically in a pluralistic society. I found myself drawn to philosophy because I was fascinated by the frameworks we use to ask questions about justice, morality, freedom, and self.

In my free time, my background also leads me to look for ways to bring people together in community advocacy, to support youth mental health and environmental justice. This means showing up fully, learning as I go, and getting others with me. Whether between different groups at school or in conversations where people don’t agree, I enjoy challenging myself and those around me to question their assumptions and see all sides of our choices while bridging gaps across divides. 

I am a part of a Youth Advisory Board for NJ4S, a state-led initiative that advocates for youth mental wellness in New Jersey. The Youth Advisory Board is a group of health care professionals, community organizers, and students who meet in person or virtually every month. Of the many communities that I am involved in, this one is significant to me in that I can see in others sharing the same belief I hold in community advocacy, of gathering experiences and building networks between communities and policymakers that can address the health needs of local communities in northern New Jersey. 

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