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Simply, A Bowling Ball On Top of a Blanket

Dear a gravitating and dope reader, 
The American high school educational system seems to always find very miniscule ways of being oh-so-very incorrect. I can’t tell you if it’s a result of normalized vocabulary or plain human stupidity (or I could just be really critical and nitpicky, giving the illusion of incorrectness in my eyes), but we must get one fact straight before we move on: gravity is not a force. I repeat: gravity is not a force. This common misconception makes me scream internally. 
Albert Einstein created the “Theory of Relativity” as a general descriptor for the unification of “special relativity” and “general relativity”. Contrary to Newtonian physics, which describes gravity as a force, Einstein instead theorizes that this supposed “force” of gravity is in fact a byproduct of the curvature of spacetime.

An object with this much mass on a cold blanket would probably have the gravitational pull of a black hole. Or, conversely, me after eating 6 dominoes pizzas at 3 AM (completely factual, happens often).

Imagine that the entire plane of the universe was a stretched out blanket, except instead of being warm and fuzzy, the universe is cold, unwelcoming and not here for your bullshit. Now, imagine I place a tennis ball on top of the metaphorical-cold-unwelcoming-blanket-universe. The curvature produced by the tennis ball simulates gravity.
Now, imagine I put a bowling ball on top of this said blanket. The curvature produced would be much more pronounced and much deeper. More massive objects have a higher gravitational pull, as showcased by the much deeper curvature. Hypothetically, if the bowling ball and tennis ball were next to each other on the cold-spacetime-blanket, and I were to place a marble in between the two objects, the marble would be attracted to the bowling ball.
Summarized, gravity is the byproduct of the curvature of spacetime, but the indications about the universe that Einstein builds off of this fact is what truly makes the Theory of relativity so much more gravitating (an unintentional, yet superior and underappreciated pun). 
Time is subjective. On one hand, some like to view time as a human-made construct based on a naturally occurring phenomenon. But, the experience of time passing by in itself is relative (great word choice on Einstein’s part). For one, in areas of high gravitational pull, time moves by slower, a phenomenon described using the term “time dilation”.
As we’ve discussed, gravity is essentially the byproduct of the bending of spacetime, therefore a higher gravitational pull indicates a much deeper and pronounced curve. Thus, time in itself is impacted by differences in gravity. You are literally bending time. 
Einstein’s new ideas also unintentionally led to the prediction of black holes, white holes, neutron stars, and plethora of other theoretical/proven astronomical anomalies --- anomalies which I personally find to be some of the most interesting things to study in physics. We’ll get to some of those a little later. 
So, give your daily thanks to Albert Einstein for giving an intriguing preface to what is one of the most interesting eras in astrophysical history (and don’t forget his first wife Mileva Maric, who is undeservingly overlooked despite her contributions to his theories. Welcome to historical sexism! We totally undermined the development of society by being discriminatory assholes. Woo, humanity). 
Sincerely, 
A pondering-if-time-is-even-an-entropy-or-if-i’m-even-alive-Nicole at 1:21AM 

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