Understanding Time Through Movement, Reality and Choice – An Interview with Michael Galileo
Michael Galileo wrote Where Time Comes From: A Handbook for Humans and created the Real Time Earth Clock. His work explores time, movement, consciousness, choice, and the ever-evolving reality we live in.
In this interview, Galileo explains why he began questioning our conventional understanding of time, what his Earth Clock is designed to reveal, and how recognizing the relationship between possibility and choice can change the way we navigate our lives.
Michael Galileo, Author, Inventor & Founder of Galileo Real Time
What first led you to question the way we usually understand time?
For most of my life, I never questioned it. Nobody does. We look at a clock, see the hands moving, and assume we're looking at time. Then one day I asked myself a very simple question:
"What exactly is the clock measuring?"
That question changed everything. A clock doesn't create time. It measures the repetition of something, usually the movement of the Earth, and gives us a system for keeping track of it.
Then I started looking at the Earth itself. We're standing on a planet that's spinning and traveling through space, yet our clocks make us feel as though we're standing still while some invisible thing called “time” moves past us.
I began wondering if we'd simply gotten used to looking at reality from the wrong perspective. The more I investigated, the more I saw that what we call time is really our experience of an evolving reality, one moment becoming the next. Once I saw that, I couldn't unsee it.
What does the Real Time Earth Clock reveal that a conventional clock cannot?
A conventional clock tells you what time humans have agreed it is. My clock is intended to show you where you are. There's a big difference.
The Earth isn't sitting still while time passes. We're moving with it. We're rotating, we're traveling around the Sun, and we're moving through space at roughly 18.5 miles every second.
But look at a conventional clock. It doesn't show you any of that. It gives you a little circle of numbers and makes the world feel stationary. I wanted to change that.
The Real Time Earth Clock puts the Earth at the center and makes our relationship to its movement visible. It also moves counterclockwise because I wanted the clock's movement to match how we're actually moving on Earth, rather than simply repeating a convention we've inherited. So it's a clock, but it's also a reminder: You're not standing still. Neither is the Earth.
How did decades of independent inquiry shape the ideas behind Where Time Comes From?
I didn't set out to write a book about time. I set out to understand things. I've always been curious about how things work, and that curiosity took me into science, mathematics, philosophy, spirituality, consciousness, and human behavior.
I kept following questions wherever they led. One thing raised another question, and eventually I began seeing the same pattern in very different places: things aren't simply what they are.
They're continuously becoming what they will become. That led me to the question of choice. If every moment becomes the next, what determines what the next moment becomes? That's where my central idea came from: reality = possibility + choice.
Where Time Comes From is really my attempt to put that puzzle together and make it understandable to another human being. It's not meant to be something you simply read and put back on the shelf. It's an invitation to look at the world again.
Where do you draw the line between scientific explanation, philosophical interpretation, and metaphor in your work?
I think it's important to know the difference. Science deals with what we can observe, measure, and test. Philosophy asks what those observations might mean. Metaphor helps us understand an idea by connecting it to something we already know. I use all three.
If I say the Earth is moving through space, that's a physical reality. If I ask what that movement means for our understanding of time, I'm entering philosophical territory. When I compare life to a river, that's a metaphor.
I'm not interested in pretending they're all the same thing. What interests me is what happens when you put them side by side and start asking questions.
Sometimes a metaphor can make you see something you've looked at a thousand times without actually seeing it. That's really what I'm trying to do with my work. I'm not asking people to believe me. I'm asking them to look.
Why do you think questions about consciousness and human choice are becoming more important in conversations about reality?
Because we've gotten very good at studying the universe outside ourselves, but we're still trying to understand the person doing the looking.
We can examine galaxies. We can look inside atoms. We can study the brain. But then there's this extraordinary thing called human consciousness sitting in the middle of it all, experiencing reality and making choices.
That can't be ignored. I'm fascinated by the relationship between possibility and choice because possibilities are constantly presenting themselves to us, but they don't become our experience until something happens, usually a choice. That's why I keep coming back to: reality = possibility + choice.
I'm not saying we control everything that happens to us. We obviously don't. But we do have influence over what happens next. I think recognizing that is enormously empowering.
What does it mean in practical terms to say that our choices help shape the next moment?
Think about driving a car. You didn't build the road. You don't control the weather. You don't control the other cars. But you constantly look ahead and make choices based on what you see.
Life is much the same. Every choice becomes part of the circumstances that shape the next choice. A conversation changes a relationship. A decision changes a career. An action creates a consequence, and that consequence becomes part of the next moment.
That's why I think of life as a river. You didn't create the river. You don't control the current. You don't know everything that's around the next bend. But you're in the boat, and you have a paddle. That's choice. The trick is to pay attention to what's coming while you still have time to act.
How can someone use your idea of “The Code” when facing uncertainty or an important decision?
The Code is really about recognizing the pattern by which one moment becomes the next. When we're uncertain, we often want to know exactly what will happen before we make a decision. But that's impossible. The future hasn't happened yet.
So I suggest starting with what's actually in front of you:
What are the possibilities?
What are the circumstances?
What choices are available?
Then ask yourself: Which choice best aligns with the reality I want to create? You don't have to control the whole river. You just have to navigate the part of the river you're in. There's another important part of this: pay attention to truth.
If you knowingly make a choice based on something you know isn't true, you're building your next moment on a false foundation. The Code isn't complicated. See what's real. Recognize what's possible. Make your choice. Then pay attention to what becomes next.
What has your attempt to reconcile science and spirituality taught you about how you personally see the world?
It's taught me that I don't have to choose between them. Science gives us an extraordinary way to investigate how the physical universe works. Spirituality asks some very different questions:
Why are we here?
What matters?
How should we live?
What does our existence mean?
For me, those questions don't have to be enemies. In fact, I think they're two different ways of looking at the same extraordinary mystery. I've also learned to become comfortable with not knowing.
The universe is enormously larger and more complicated than any one human being can comprehend. That doesn't discourage me. It makes me curious.
My job isn't to have every answer. My job is to keep asking better questions. One of the most important things I've learned is that reality doesn't have to conform to what I was taught it was. Sometimes we have to drop the illusion before we can see what's actually there.
What is the one idea about time you hope readers carry with them after encountering your work?
I'd like them to stop thinking of time as something that's simply being taken away from them. We say we're “running out of time,” “wasting time,” “saving time,” or “losing time.” But time isn't a substance sitting somewhere that we can put in a jar.
We're moving. The Earth is moving. Circumstances are changing. Possibilities are appearing. Every moment is becoming the next. So I would encourage people to stop looking only at where they've been and start paying attention to where they're going.
Ask yourself: What is this becoming? Then look at the possibilities and choose. Because life really is just one thing after another, and that's the good news.
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