And then questions lead to more questions. As human beings, we think we are pretty hot stuff. That we are smart and can figure things out. But after awhile you begin to wonder if dogs or insects think the same thing. So in my previous post (see below) I make lots of assumptions, that maybe just show that we don't really understand as much as we think we understand.
We are very much influenced by our own personal experience of time, causation, and what we think of as a "sequence of events." We may just be bumping up against the limits of our own understanding as individuals, and as a species. Maybe as they say, "everything we know is wrong," or at least, partial, and maybe even beside the point.
So we look at a life, or a history, and we see a sequence, but this kind of looking and seeing and analysis, this kind of understanding, is actually just a construction that we use to try to make sense of a grander thing that we can't really encompass or get our heads around. Yes, we are trying to catch an ocean of life, of experience, of time, in a little sieve. The water pours through the sieve, we watch it and draw conclusions, make speculations, think we understand.
We try to separate our selves out from the universe of things but by stepping out we have already lost the thread. There is a long unfolding going on. We are part of it, and only a tiny part of it. And that is all really. The rest is just sort of for "entertainment purposes only." We can think and speculate all we want, maybe it's useful to us. But there is a grander thing going on. And it has very little to do with what we think or speculate about it.