I think everything about life is a fractal. I think the small things repeat all the way into the big things. I often apply things we know (small things) to things we have no clue about and I think about how those principals apply to the big stuff (like the universe, time, etc.). I give you just one example. The fractal zooms, everything keeps changing as you zoom in, yet the whole thing exists as one piece. I think that time may work like that. It already exists (although it had to grow from something, so perhaps it's still growing now), but I think zooming into a fractal is like us "zooming" through time.
Output becomes the next input. A tree from last year is now a little different and is the input for what the tree will be like next year.
Ok, I will give another example. Maybe our universe is like a branch (or leave?) on a tree. So that there are many many universes and new ones "sprout".
I realize this is way far out there, but that's the kind of thoughts that fractals bring up, so in short, they are amazing.