Is it possible that time as we know it does not exist?

There is this one thought that bothers me a lot. ‘How did everything come into existence?’ Everything that we see around us cannot be created from nothing. There has to be something or someone who created our universe. Obviously this is not a rule. But it scares me to think that at some point in time the entire universe might simply seize to exist. I don’t want that to ever happen.

I am a big supporter of creation and sustenance. I would love if everything in the universe would exists always. Like even though time keeps on changing things there is some way to make all the past and the future to exist in the now. This is where the large river analogy comes in:

Our universe is like a
huge perennially flowing river.
When viewed from a distance
it looks still and unchanged.
It’s only after falling in it
we can sense the passage of time.

Another analogy I can make to explain this further is, let us consider our universe to be like a video game. All the events of this game are pre-planned and exist always. Now, its upon us to chose at which saved point we want to enter and experience it.

While we are in the game we will sense the passage of time. We’ll experience beautiful moments first hand but once we experience them they become our past and hence inaccessible. The only way to re-experience those memories if we get out of the game and then get in again starting the life we lived all over again. This way nothing we know or see is truly lost to time because time as we know it does not exist.

As comforting as this thought is to me, it raises another question,

“If our actions aren’t adding to the story and everything that happens is inevitable and fixed then what is the purpose of our existence?”