Some ancient cultures understood time differently from us, they understood it as a cyclical phenomenon, and great catastrophes were an inherent part of that model. With the advent of the Judeo-Christian belief system, concepts of time tended to become linear rather than cyclical. This understanding of time being linear is so ingrained that the philosophical idea of time is the way we experience this reality. In “The perspective on time – is it linear or cyclical?” Stephen Nash writes: “Until recently, the lives of agricultural, nomadic, and even urban peoples were governed by the endlessly repeating seasonal round. Calendars, which portray time as a linear concept, are a recent phenomenon considering our species’ long-term existence. The earliest calendar may have developed as early as 10,000 years ago; well-documented calendar systems don’t become common in the archaeological record until within the last 5,000 years. Our species is 200,000 years old; for at least 95% of humankind’s existence as a species, time was cyclical and circadian.”
In addition to time being cyclical or linear, it is worth considering the opinion that time is an illusion. The argument is the future and past are only constructs of the mind, which exist in an eternal now. All we have to do is consider our next appointment or train schedules to recognise that, at the very least, it is a social agreement. I believe it better described as how we experience the reality of this reality, this dimension.