There are words that open doors to larger rooms of thought. “Tomorrow is the day that has not yet been touched” is such an expression. It captures something fundamental about our existence: our relationship with time. We always live in the tension between what already is – the past, the touched, the already shaped – and what is yet to be – the future, the untouched, the possible.
To speak of tomorrow as untouched is to acknowledge that there is something sacred in the future. Something that awaits us, as free beings, to step into and shape. Yet also something that cannot be grasped.
The Purity of Untouchedness
When we say that tomorrow is untouched, we invoke something pure. A day not yet stained by our choices, our words, our actions. It is like an unwritten book, a blank canvas, a sea without waves.
There is stillness in this. Space for dreams, for possibilities. But there is also existential weight. For as soon as we touch tomorrow, its purity is gone. It becomes reality, history, another layer of the already touched.
This is almost tragic: tomorrow is only untouched as long as it does not yet exist. The moment it dawns, it loses its innocence.
The Human as Creator
To speak of the untouched tomorrow is also to speak of the human being as creator. We are the ones who touch the untouched, who shape reality through our choices. Heidegger argued that human existence is always “thrown” toward the future – we do not merely live in the present, we always project ourselves forward into what is not yet.
Tomorrow is therefore not just neutral time. It is raw material. It awaits our touch. And within that lies our freedom – but also our responsibility.
Freedom and the Burden
The freedom of tomorrow is obvious: anything can happen. I can break a pattern, make a decision, create a new direction. But the same freedom is also a burden. For if anything can happen, it means I cannot blame tomorrow itself. It is I who make it what it becomes.
Jean-Paul Sartre described freedom as a curse. We are condemned to be free, because we can never escape choice. Tomorrow, untouched as it is, is a constant reminder of that curse. It lies there, open, waiting – and demands of us that we do something with it.
The Shadow of Yesterday
Yet we never arrive at tomorrow completely untouched. We always carry the marks of yesterday. Memory, guilt, experience – all of this colors the way we step into the future.
Tomorrow, then, is never entirely pure in practice. It is untouched in itself, but we touch it with hands already marked. Our gaze is colored by what we have seen. Our hearts are scarred by what we have felt.
The question then becomes: can we ever meet tomorrow as truly new? Or are we always doomed to repeat ourselves, to carry yesterday into what should be free?
Hope as Movement
Despite this, something in us keeps reaching for the untouched tomorrow. We call it hope. Hope is not naïve, not merely illusion. Hope is the movement that carries us forward, despite the weight of yesterday.
To say “tomorrow” is to say: I believe in continuation. I believe in possibility. I believe that the untouched can be better than the already touched.
This hope is perhaps the most human thing we possess. Without it, we would be trapped in the present or drowned in the past. Hope is our bridge to the untouched tomorrow.
When Tomorrow Does Not Arrive
But what happens when tomorrow does not come? When death suddenly erases the future?
Then the insight grows sharper: tomorrow is never guaranteed. We may speak of it as promise, but it is only possibility. And so every tomorrow we receive becomes a gift. A gift we can choose to waste, or to honor.
This also makes the present more precious. For if tomorrow is uncertain, today is all we truly have. To live as if each day were both the last and the first – perhaps that is the only true way to touch tomorrow.
Society’s Tomorrow
On a collective level, the same holds true. Societies, cultures, civilizations always face the question: what kind of tomorrow are we creating?
History is full of examples of yesterday’s patterns repeating – wars, exploitation, abuse of power. But it is also full of moments when people dared to touch tomorrow differently – with peace, with justice, with creation.
The untouched tomorrow is therefore also a moral challenge: do we want to touch it with the same old hands, or can we cleanse them first?
The Art of Not Touching Too Soon
Perhaps one of our greatest problems is that we want to fill tomorrow too quickly. We plan, schedule, control. We want to know in advance what it will be. But by doing so, we rob it of its untouchedness. We remove its chance to surprise us, to be something other than our projection.
It takes courage not to plan everything. To let something remain untouched until it truly arrives. To let the future come to us, instead of us rushing toward it with already full hands.
A Contemplative Attitude
Maybe we can approach tomorrow as a monk approaches silence. With reverence. With patience. With openness.
Tomorrow is not an enemy to be conquered, not a resource to be exploited. It is a space to step into, gently, with respect. Seeing it this way transforms how we live today.
Closing: To Touch Gently
“Tomorrow is the day that has not yet been touched.” It is a reminder of time’s mystery, of our freedom, of our responsibility. But above all, it is an invitation. An invitation to approach the future gently, with open eyes and clean hands.
We cannot prevent tomorrow from being touched – that is life itself. But we can choose how we touch it. With violence or with tenderness. With routine or with awareness. With desperation or with hope.
And perhaps it is precisely there, in the conscious touch, that we create something worthy of being called life.
By Chris...