Close your eyes.
Doesn't it always feel like you were born just a moment ago? Maybe it's because all there is is the present. I do have memories, but these memories are always remembered and experienced in the present. I can also plan for the future, but the future is never experienced as the future, it is only experienced as the present. Maybe the past and the future are just illusions of consciousness, parts of our imagination. Maybe consciousness is instantaneous and eternal. There aren't different moments, there is just one infinite eternal moment. That's how cause and effect can be connected, because they are not disconnected. They are a whole, not two parts. Same for objects. They are not different objects. All objects are just one whole. They are not separate, they just appear to be.
But why do things appear to be in ways that they are not truly? Because perception would not be possible otherwise. Perception requires differentiation. Without differentiation, no perception can take place. So we differentiate between moments, and differentiate between objects. Through these differentiations, we become conscious of our existence and the existence of everything else which appears to be separate from us.
Yet, as we discussed with the objects, the separation is illusory. Just as the objects are not truly separate, neither are our bodies and minds separate from the rest of the world. The separate world is just an illusion, it is all just us. But who are we? What are we? And why our consciousnesses are separate even though the world around us is part of us? Where are our consciousness if not within the world around us, that is apparent to us? Is there even a "where" and a "when"?
As I write this I have set my alarm for tomorrow morning three times. About every 10 seconds the alarm goes off, telling me to wake up.