BY MATTHEW ROBERTSON
Over the holidays, I revisited one of my favorite films: Interstellar. Framed as a sweeping space odyssey, it explores themes of love, survival, and the future of humanity. Beneath its epic scale, however, lies a quieter and more radical proposition—that time is not simply a straight line we move along, but something more like a material in itself.
In the days since, that idea has resonated. I’ve been contemplating time not as an abstract backdrop to my life, but as a subtle, energetic substance – one shaped by impressions formed within it as it unfolds through cycles, much as memory influences the probabilities of our future. As I reflected on the impressions that had most influenced my own life, one experience surfaced almost immediately — unexpected, but unmistakably alive.
I was fourteen, in seventh grade. Crossing a quiet schoolyard during a break between classes, I encountered a friend’s older brother, an eighth-grader weeks away from graduating. He would soon be leaving the known territory of a small school, shared with the same seventy-five classmates from kindergarten through eighth grade, to meet the vast unknown.
“How does it feel to be almost done?” I asked. He paused, then offered a response I’ve never forgotten: “Good. It’s got me thinking about how people are going to remember me.” The simplicity of his reply caught me off guard, and something in it lodged itself deeply in my mind.
As my own graduation approached the following year, those words echoed in my mind, inspiring not so much grand intentions as small, ordinary choices. One afternoon during a stretch of unstructured time, I noticed a boy from my grade sitting alone on the common benches. He had been part of our class years earlier before his family moved away, and now – during our final year of middle school – he had returned to finish with a group that had continued forming bonds without him.
Imagining how disorienting it must be to reenter a nearly forgotten circle during a year defined by endings, I went to sit beside him, shoulder to shoulder. Quietly taking in familiar spaces we were about to leave behind, we talked about his life in Chicago and shared memories from when we were six and seven years old — small moments briefly re-lit with warmth and nostalgia. Soon to go our separate ways, we shared in that moment genuine goodwill that would follow us both into our next chapters.
Later, on graduation day, he approached me and said, “Hey Matt, I just wanted to say thank you for sitting with me that day. It helped.” In that moment, I understood something not fully grasped previously: our lives are molded not only by what happens to us, but by what we leave behind. Even the smallest acts of presence can ripple forward, quietly influencing lives in ways we may never fully see. My encounters with both of those boys shaped the man I have become. And they, and all of us, are shaping our world every day.
Now, in this time of hyperconnectivity, we are grappling with the force of many accumulated impressions, both personal and collective. Spawned by generations of confusion, violence, and stress – themselves born from the trials of survival – we now work to temper those forces by realizing the potential futures offered by cooperation over competition, and harmony over division. If we accept the challenge to look inward and do the work to understand our essential nature as a common species, those futures can be actively shaped. Through us, a new system is born to meet our unprecedented cultural moment. A defining feature of our moment may be this: the pursuit of common good and the path of personal growth are no longer separate journeys. Will we choose to turn towards a better world?
The crew in Interstellar, in order to embark on their journey, had to learn how to navigate the spacecraft that would carry them to new worlds. We too must learn to navigate the unknown around us using the most essential vessel we inhabit – our bodies and minds – as they carry us through life. The most valuable provision we have on board is our capacity of attention itself. When we direct attention inward, insight begins to surface, revealing the impressions that shape our perception. Creating space through mindful attention allows us to become more responsive, more aware, more healed, and more authentic – clearer versions of who we already are.
Einstein showed us that space and time are not separate. As we create time in our lives, we remake the shared spaces of our world. Journeying through uncertainty and change, pausing to observe our inner landscape, listening for what is asked of us, we can remain open to the connections unfolding all around. We never fully know how our presence, our choices, or our kindness, might ripple forward. Even a single moment of clarity can leave an impression that helps shape a more humane and thriving world.
And so the most meaningful service we have to offer – to ourselves and our world – is to board our psychic vessel and become explorers of our inner landscape. If we create the space within us to allow wiser, more compassionate actions to arise naturally – and they will – we will be imprinting future time and space with a truly epic story of love, survival, and a bright future for humanity.
