More melancholy than mad scientist on these Mondays, as of late. Or so the appearance seems and feels when the delusion is invoked, and fingers find their way to keys and construct some semblance of meaning from these often otherwise frantic and misfiring neural connections. Even in sleep, sometimes, they do not cease. In such a realm they can be unrelenting, conspired from the secrets I keep even from my own self. Or the characters and circumstances in waking sentience oft forgotten or near so, how the lead nocturnal productions promoting even further confusion within the consciousness could create in moments more waking and awake.

And yet, still, onward. To see, if nothing profound provokes my attention, at least something with some literary aesthetic. Something pretty enough to not mean much of anything else.

There was a live theatrical production, this weekend, in which my singular offspring participated and thrived in. I helped out, as well. A small part along with a few of the other fathers that provoked immense nostalgia pondering within my mind and spirit- but that’s not an ideation I’d like to indulge at this moment. But kiddo performed and excelled and expressed afterward that bittersweetness I had once known and still know so well when something you’ve invested a part of your soul so truthfully in comes to an end. As all things must. End, that is. Even, or perhaps especially when you’d wish it would go on for at least a bit more of this eternity.

But before we ponder all that, there was a line that while not expertly delivered (by some other kid, not mine), still struck me when spoken.

‘You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find that you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.’

Not bad for a musical from the mid-twentieth century. There’s a tune in that show that breaks a piece of me every time, but I suppose potency of that particular piece of music has more to do with a friend, now dead, and for some time now. And that span of time will only continue to grow until my time itself runs out.

But, you know, so it goes.

So anyway, back to tomorrows and yesterdays.

As a semi-professional procrastinator, to compile all needed deeds and ambitions upon the plate of some future self doesn’t take all that much effort. Tomorrow’s problems for tomorrow’s me, etc. But whatever brief solace such supplanting appears to adhere, the once future of my now past is filled with fickle feats and follies plenty enough to reduce much of the authenticity of such an approach. Whereas younger days held the naive almost belief that there might always be more, the surveillance of passing time not free of a bit of cynicism now knows a bit more concretely that nothing is guaranteed, certainly nothing that resembles immortality.   

Yet, still-

Tomorrow is always a day away. Until, of course, it isn’t. And perhaps yesterday seems so brightly illuminated, but that is only because the light which blinds us to the exacts of the future is still set ahead, so from our shadows we seem to see so clearly what was. But that is just a trick of light, for outside our hearts and minds, what was will never quite be the same again.

A bit grim, perhaps. Fret not, dear reader, for my next trick I shall try and turn this into something not only seeming more optimistic, but dare I say, a brighter outlook in actuality.

For as much as lessons need be learned from both the success and failures of yesteryear, we need not be ensnared in some nostalgia trap in order to gain that knowledge. We may be drawn to such bait, simple and desire driven creatures we still are, but the critical aspects of our functional reasoning allow us the only bit of experimental time travel we are thus far capable of. For even if outcomes can never be exactly repeated twice, we can derive patterns from the former in order to better form the future. Knowing ourselves and knowing our environments both massive and minutely is integral, even if incompletely, as is the understanding that all around us changes on this march forward. Even when not perceptible, it is as certain as any other observable business in this universe. Even the decay of things is a change towards the future. Even if only towards entropy or emptiness, and whatever it is that might come after that, which could be the same place from whence all this originally arrived.

As I explained to the child half made up of my genetic code and such- it is the moments that were worth living that make us feel the ache once they are gone. But at the same time, we often could not predict or precisely preconceive what invokes the feeling of backwards longing that is such a vast part of the human struggle. But as I have thus far, and continue to learn- always looking backwards means we stand no chance of seeing what is yet to be, even when almost exactly arrived. And while it is important to remain with a certain amount of vigilance for the villains and vile violations of what we wish, facing forward is not only a preventive measure for cautionary tales yet to be, but a key to embracing something so wonderful that it may someday break your heart in the most beautiful of ways. Keeping an eye, and ear, and all the rest open ahead is how we get the kind of events, and beings, worth missing in the first. An experiment personally conducted again, and again, and so on, within my own existence.

If always glancing beyond time already well past fleeted, how then could you see something even more glorious upon the horizon. Now, your humble narrator may be a fool, but he is certainly not stupid enough to believe the road of opportunity goes on forever. There aren’t quite ever true fairy tales and the like, and while there is still much opportunity in a life already well spent, none of that is a certainty upon any timeline gone on a little or long while. But for a cosmic glimpse, there is a chance. Though, nothing in ever quite guaranteed.

Sure, I believe it exists, but still- not everyone finds love. Or success. Or belonging to quell the longing etched into our hearts. Dreams, as it were, do not always come true, if they ever really do, or ever even have. But even the idea of fixed visions of determination and desire is another nostalgia snare best to be aware of, if not avoided more outright. After all, life is not some static state. In near constant status of often unpredictable patterns of flux and dynamics- that is the life of us human beings. Constant and consistently at least a little bit inconsistent, at least when it isn’t being very inconsistent.

Funny how that goes, though. In my explanations for existential navigation as a guide for my daughter, I so often find at least hints of the answers I was seeking myself. But what was it some famous smart person allegedly once said?

‘If you can’t explain it to a child, then you don’t really understand it.’

Or something like that. So, I’ll try and take my own advice and keep my eyes forward. It’s not as though my mind lets me so easily forget what has already been. Need not invest too much energy into the past, it’s not as though anything about it could be changed. And while many argue about destiny and fate and free will- I still like to believe that our influence upon what is still to be isn’t entirely absent. Hell, if you catch me in one of my real narcissistic moods, I might think myself quite the shaper of the days that are yet to be.