(Added comment August 12th: 'Just wanted to note that what I've expressed here is a view articulated by others and accepted by many among scientists and philosophers. I hope I've stated and summed up the concept well but have no intention of suggesting that the ideas expressed are somehow "mine.").
The progressions and developments we perceive in time intuitively seem to occur in orderly succession ("past" to "future"). Such perception leads one to believe that all creative acts and events occur from a sort of symbolic "push" forward -- the events of the past and present produce the future. But, we don't have to perceive it that way. It is every bit as realistic to perceive reality as being "pulled" toward what has already been determined to be.
From the broadest of perspectives -- beyond time so to speak -- everything that can or will occur has, at some future time, already occurred. In that sense, the perceived "push" into the future is actually a natural process of events being drawn forward by what has already "occurred." This would present an amazing but completely plausible scenario in which the universe was existing in a perpetually cycling loop, producing itself from itself - a recurring state of always producing itself yet having always been.
Another analogy would be to look upon existence as being akin to a motion picture film or chapters in a book, where the characters in each frame or chapter are clearly embedded in their moments of time having passed various demarcation points and moving toward a future that is already very much there but is yet unknown to "them."
