Hi John, thanks, now I better understand your point.

“There is no literal “dimension” of time, because the past is consumed by the present, in order to inform and drive it.”

This view is shared by Bergson, Prigogine etc. But the opposite view (Einstein’s) is shared by more experts at this moment. As I say in the OP, I wander chaotically between and around the two. Perhaps both views are valid in different senses.

“Just because the math works, don’t mean we will be time traveling through wormholes in the ‘fabric of spacetime,’ no matter how much mathematical faerie dust is applied.”

I don’t consider this (that we will be time traveling through wormholes etc.) as a certainty, but I do consider it as a possibility, and since it’s a desirable possibility I spend time thinking about it. Have you seen my book?