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You are used to seeing time as a line, flowing from past to present and from present to future. Some people see the past to their left, others see the past to their right, and still others see the past behind them. Where is the past for you? Point to it. Where is the future then? Is it directly opposite?
When you think about time in all its unfolding, you eventually get to the point of the cycles of time. And those are not linear. They are circles, or rather, they are spirals. You go around the Sun each year, and the seasons are the same but the weather is different. The days of the week repeat, but the life experiences are different.
Time only exists in the material world. It doesn’t exist in your dreams or wishes. It doesn’t exist in your thoughts. It only exists in the physical plane of matter. All matter is tied to time. It is created/born; grows to maturity; then deteriorates and dies/disintegrates to start the cycle again. This is the ultimate recycling. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed, only changed in form.
Matter can change form through physical and chemical changes, but through any of these changes matter is conserved. The same amount of matter exists before and after the change—none is created or destroyed. This concept is called the Law of Conservation of Mass.
Eat an apple, and what you consume becomes a part of your physical form. What you toss in the compost decays, freeing the seeds to grow into apple trees that then grow more apples. The cycle repeats endlessly.