Time as a wheel with spokes

Time is a strange thing. We experience it as linear, as a continual forward progression, and in a major sense it is. But it also seems circular to me--like a wheel with spokes. My experience with time is that it can be all-encompassing; it surrounds me, as though I am in the center of a circle from which spokes radiate out. At the end of those spokes are specific experiences that envelope me. The straight lines that are those spokes are the chronological events leading to those ends. But they could just as well be wavy spokes, or spokes with spikes poking out every which way. The spikes could be detours along the way or interesting experiences in and of themselves, leading to the ends. I think more and more that time is circular; that the individual experiences of each individual person are connected, that they radiate out from a center (the person in question) but that they meet and form the wheel of time that defines one person's life. The spikes may stick out in all directions from the spokes; they may be long or short. In this way we can interact with others during our lives. 

I wondered if others have pondered this view of time, so I googled 'time as a wheel with spokes' and the first link that was returned was the 'Wheel of Time' on Wikipedia (Wheel of time - Wikipedia). Apparently a number of religions subscribe to the concept of time as cyclical, including Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism. But I didn't really find any discussion of spokes and spikes. It seems to me that as we age, we accumulate more spokes, so that eventually the spokes begin to interact with each other, begin to touch each other, begin to crowd each other. Perhaps the spikes from each spoke meet the spikes from the other spokes and form 'ladders'. Perhaps that explains the feeling of being enveloped, of being surrounded by multiple experiences. Perhaps this is what is meant by the feeling that we have coexistent 'parallel lives'; not lives at all, but parallel experiences that eventually interact with each other or join each other. In this way, time seems to be more fluid. At least it doesn't feel solid to me; I don't experience it that way. 

I am curious (and always have been) about time because sometimes I experience what I call  'the ache across time'. The ache across time is the knowledge that somewhere out there is an experience of time that has touched us deeply, that has passed, that will never come again, but one that we remember perfectly. It is an ache for what will never come again in exactly that way--be it times together with loved ones, the experience of the beauty of the natural world, or a book or song that touches us. The ache is a part of us, ingrained in our time memory. We remember those times and experiences as though they happened yesterday. The spikes on our wheel spokes have interacted with the spikes of other people, floating in the vast expanse of the universe. Perhaps our wheels have attached to them via the spikes and become entangled. 

I like this view of time. It's intensely personal but interpersonal as well. It can account for that feeling of parallel lives, and can be modified to suit different situations. I asked Bing's AI chatbot to draw me a wheel with spokes that have spikes, but it really didn't return a satisfactory drawing. It did return four actual photos of wheels with spokes, but no spikes attached to the spokes. I'll have to work on drawing one myself. I'm not sure how the people in my life view time or if they reflect on it at all; I've had some interesting discussions with my husband about time some years ago, but mostly in regard to how time is viewed according to the theory of general relativity, which is not at all my forte. I think it's interesting, but I hit the wall immediately when I tried to understand the mathematics underlying the principles of physics. I am more comfortable residing in the realm of sci-fi and fantasy where such things are concerned.