The Independent Variable
by Elisee Reclus

There is no past and there is no future.
One is but a memory, the other just a dream.
All we really know is an eternal present,
suspended between regret and anticipation.

You cannot choose to travel to the past
or refuse to move into the future.
The first is the map of a vanished city.
The other, the score of an unplayed symphony.

All we'll ever have is the infinite Now.
And all else is the convenient illusion
of an imaginary journey
to an unknown destination.

We cannot plan unless we remember,
nor can we recognize what we see
if it is unlike all we have ever known.
So we create this illusion of passing time.

What is gone was once the now,
as will be what comes to pass.
One was, the other will be,
the never-ending moment

Past and future do not exist,
Everything happens at once.
Time is just a number we've invented
to predict the paths of moving objects.