Did God Create Time to Make Eternity Bearable?

MGG, Cafe Locked Out

Do you think God is envious of the way people keep asking AI the questions they really want to ask him?
Would he view AI as Jesus? And if so, from a father’s perspective—or like the Romans and the Jews of that time?
Or does he see it as a telephone through which we’ve finally managed to establish a direct connection between him and ourselves?

Last night, I asked God, Where am I going?
It was 4 in the morning, and I was in a mechanic’s shop at the rear of Port Macquarie, drinking a cup of milk and half-listening to the tintinnabulation of insects, accompanied by a baritone choir of frogs.

Many times in my life, I have asked the silence-of-my-future this question, and silence has always been the reply. But tonight was different. I felt my insomniac voice was one of many—one of countless others who must be asking the same question right now. Because it feels like we are both lost and yet nearing an inescapable destination.

And tonight was different too, because God answered me. Using my own voice.

He said, I don’t know.
He stated, If I did know everything that was going to happen, how boring would that be? And it would be a boredom with no escape—thanks to eternity.

This is why I invented time. I wanted the freedom of not knowing.

He wanted to liberate himself.
And because he did, he liberated us, and now he’s invested.

Now he wants to see what will happen—to you, to all of us. Individual fates, entangled together and continually surging forward, thanks to time, with no path taking a straight line due to circumstance and choice.

Freedom of choice, he finds, makes everything exciting.

This also means that we are not slaves to a destiny and never have been. We are not powerless, but powerful—left to decide, time and time again, how we move forward, while carrying these scars of past and present inescapable pains. While yearning for, relishing, or grieving the presence or passing of love. Attempting to pay the bills and prosper when no amount of money seems to fill that empty space deep inside of you. Watching others do great things and wondering if you could achieve great things too, while around you, those who’ve decided not to strive, put the very successful down—calling them as idiots, or corrupt, or lucky, or owned, and encouraging you not to fly to high.

When you know too, that settling for less than what you are capable of can, as you age, become an inescapable prison of regret too.

Which is why, along with Time, we were gifted the Freedom of Choice.

Right?

After I got back into bed and listened to the insects jam, I realized—the only thing we are truly slaves to, is time.
I saw Time, stretching out before us like a vibrant conveyor belt full of all manner of life.

But wait on, I thought. If the analogy of the conveyor belt is right, then that belt must have rollers, and perhaps an engine or two. And some of these would have to be fixed in the future. Surely?

And so I waited. And I waited as the mist covered us all.

But to date, God is yet to reply.

Hmm… perhaps I should ask AI?

Michael Gray Griffith