Tomorrow Never Arrives

I was probably about age 6 when I first took notice of one of my father's favorite sayings.  It may have been that first Eureka moment in my life when I realized my parents might claim to have all the answers, but not always the right ones or ones that were unassailable.  I guess I discovered logic, or at least became aware of its existence.

"Tomorrow never arrives. "

"Sure it does Daddy."

"No.  No, it doesn't.  By the time tomorrow comes, it is today."

The man had me stumped.  I began chewing on this notion, that tomorrow never arrives.  It had to.  In my bones I knew it had to.  So I retreated into my elementary school mind and worked the notion hard for quite awhile. In kid's time, it seemed like it took forever to come up with a way to one up my ole man.

One day when I was sure I had it.  I found Dad doing Dad stuff.  I squared my shoulders and blurted, "Tomorrow does too arrive."

He stopped doing his Dad stuff and turned to look at me.  He looked at me for some seconds.  "Oh, really?  How do you figure that?

Standing a little straighter and trying to marshal up more bravado, "Today is Yesterday's Tomorrow."

Well, my ole man smiled.  He didn't say a word for what seemed like forever.  And then, "Well you know what Bug? You have me there."

As I walked away, he said to my back,  "Good job."  I remember immediate pride.

While this trip down memory lane is nice and all, my point of this post is I haven't quit chewing on Dad's original saying.  I have tried expanding it this way, that way, and eventually tried to accept that that was all there is.

It would not stay down.  Haunted me on a regular basis.  But then Time, Existence , and what it all means has had me puzzled since I first stumbled upon them.  They will most likely continue to do so I guess until the light has left my eyes and my meat's gone cold.  But I do have my latest opinion on the subject.

What happened yesterday and will happen tomorrow are intrinsically tied up, wrapped up, entwined with the events that unfold today.  It is a complicated flow of the passage of time, the actions of today  and yesterday that dictate what happens in our future tomorrows .  And often it takes the passage of many todays before we understand what happened in all those yesterdays.  And though we might have the answer today, it most likely is one we should have had yesterday and we will now pay the price for it tomorrow.

Later .............................................