The Persistence of Time

Stop.

Now go back.

Now go ahead.

None of this interrupts time. None of them takes you back in time. Each is a way of continuing, and each may be a way of moving forward.

One does not truly go back, one continues. Time does not stop, it persists.

Yet personal narratives often describe periods of progress or retreat, of stillness or movement. To make sense of existence, people seek coherence, a line along which they can move forward or backward. They need something stable to sustain them.

Sometimes they lose sight of that coherence, of the harmony between emotions, thoughts, and actions: of true stability.

To make sense of that coherence, one must question.

Each answer is a doorway.

Some doors remain closed.

Others open into smaller rooms, where the noise of the past lingers and the silence of the future hangs in the air.

Those who choose the past call it going back. Those who embrace the silence of the future call it moving forward.

And yet, at every moment, no one can lift their feet from the solid ground of the present: the room in which one moves forward simply by remaining.

Inspired by this reflection, I wrote a poem entitled The Persistence of Time, which I would like to share with you.

Time is forever new,
in the past,
in the present,
in the future,
before you,
and beyond you.

Time is only the place
where you come to know yourself.
Time It is the whole universe
gathered into this moment.

Time is nothing more
than where you are,
now.

© Rolando Andrade, 2026

Final thought: If these words stayed with you for a moment,
this space might be for you too.

I write here every week —
sometimes in the open,
sometimes a little closer,
for those who choose to stay.