As my stash of yet unused years grows smaller because I have used most of them to get me to my white hair years, I become frantic about tomorrow. I have been on a wild roller coaster ride, and now I’m coasting on the level stretch when the brakes park us under the station canopy. Getting to the end is greeted with sadness because the heart wants the excitement to go on.

We can’t know if other animals spend time thinking about the end. Do the lemmings know their parade off the cliff is the end Do they commit their mass suicide in joy or resignation? Do they do so by individual intent or by some force of a community mindset? Are all living things somehow aware of their end? Are we humans the only ones to obsess about it?

Remember when we were not supposed to wake up the morning of December 12 because that was the end of the Mayan calendar? Mayan astrophysicists did not calculate calendars beyond 2012 for some reason. Some 2012 observers surmised that they somehow knew the end would come on that date. Some guessed that the Mayans stopped planning calendars because they knew they would never see 2012 themselves and would leave it to successors to figure their own way to mark time. One columnist suggested the Mayan calendar printers might have faced a paper shortage, so were forced to end with 2012's winter solstice; or a Mayan mathematician meticulously scrutinized the ancient Mayan literature for hidden messages in collected numbers transposed to Mayan letters and found a message, "Don't buy new shoes after 2011"; or maybe they would have us simply recycle the old calendars by changing the year at the top.

Somehow, human DNA has us focused on what happens after now is gone and then begins. I want to know if my granddaughters, now racing through their teen years, will marry, find fulfilling jobs and friendships, persevere after disappointments and failures, and contribute to the life and challenges presented by their worlds. I am curious if the challenges of the climate crisis and over-population will be met, if political polarization will be breeched, if international animosities and adversarial presumptions fade, and if “these days” will someday become someone’s “good old days.” I suppose some of my curiosity is driven by fear — that Sandy Hooks and environmental destruction may remain the norm. I want to see tomorrow so I can give those that follow me a leg up on what’s ahead. Prophets usually end up marginalized or eliminated, but I’d risk it.

Somewhere in the human specie’s development — maybe in the Homosapien/Cro-magnon era, but no one knows — concerns about tomorrow became part of human’s bailiwick. At some point we began to grunt sounds that meant, “Now what?!” We’ve been asking "Now what?" ever since.

Nobody knows the answer, but there have never been a shortage of shysters willing to sell gullible takers access to one. Since the beginning claimants of supernatural insight (prophets, soothsayers, seers, fortune-tellers, oracles, clairvoyants and the like) have had a steady income. Some trade on the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies and some claim to possess more hidden specifics. They trade on human fears and curiosities, selling us “valuable” information making us poorer, but not anymore intimate with the future.

Picking the victor in the upcoming athletic match, or the date when the first leaf will fall from the front yard maple — these are pretty much stabs in the dark even for the best of prognosticators. Knowing specifics is just not in our wheelhouse. Those who say they do are just lying.

Other than the tornado watch or hurricane warning, when you hear of some future prognostication, I hope you don’t allow it to obstruct your days. As cool as it might be to have an inside track on tomorrow, no one can possess that. When future mongers tempt you with insider trade secrets about tomorrow, just hit the mute button like you would a junk telephone caller. The Mayans and all other predictors of the end of the world/universe have been wrong. It’s better to leave tomorrow in the hands of others who are charged with it care. After all, life is difficult enough managing what you’re able. Trying to manage the impossible will drive you bananas.