Epiphany. Not the Paintball gun.

A few days ago, I began to wonder about the concept of time. I marshaled my thoughts together into something where I could even begin to ask questions. From what I could come to, I had two main questions, one of which was actually answered with the help of a friend.

1) What is the past? What prevents us from going backwards in time?
Remove the human element. Imagine a time line, and everything moving forward through that time line. Now, things can move through dimensions. Take a step back, leap forward, lay down, or jump up, all these change your position in a physical plain. However, no matter what a person does, it is physically impossible to take a step backwards in time.

I wondered why this is. However, I realized after some thinking, that what exists is not the past, but merely a memory of the past. After we live through the past, it destroys itself, and it no longer exists. If the past did exist, we would be able to move through it at will, thereby making past and present indistinguishable.

To put a simple metaphor, imagine a room. Every step forward represents a day in your life. Now, with every step, the section you were once in is blocked off by a wall. It no longer exists, and you can no longer reach it. Therefore, the past doesn't exist. The memory of it does.

2) What drives our movement through time? What makes "Now" into "Before?"
Another metaphor; every step we take requires energy. Moving through time must also require some driving energy that allows us to push through time. This, I doubt I can think of any theory.

If you still do not comprehend, imagine this. "Now" is the smallest moment. The moment it takes for the thing that happens the quickest to move. "Now" is the moment in which the thought of the thought of the thought of moving enters a person's mind and when its processed. "Now" is the fastest moment, faster than a millionth of a milisecond. Now, if we go back to question one, what makes this now destroyed, and turned into the past?

Alas, there are somethings a freshman in high school isn't meant to know.