Tomorrow Belongs to Me
Performed by Rockford Auburn High School CAPA's presentation of Cabaret
Tomorrow belongs to me. It belongs to you and to everyone else who is living today and bears the good health and fortune to continue living another day. Tomorrow even belongs to those who won't be with us when night passes for today lives in their hearts nourished by the anticipation that another day must be better than this one. With the knowledge that yesterday can not be redone and the hope that what we imagine is a better life could possibly arrive tomorrow, we lay claim to that near and dear future with a certainty that betrays the fragility of our existence.
Today we live with the tools we've picked up and mastered to create the best, happiest, most satisfying versions of ourselves, and we likely try to shape our circumstances and the people who are a part of our lives in such a way that the better, brighter tomorrow comes. We use many good tools like healthy eating and exercise habits; we plan ahead and try to use our resources wisely; we are kind, encouraging, helpful and we share from our store of attention, skills and treasure. We welcome the opportunity to improve our chances at making the best possible tomorrow and hope that everyone else is doing likewise. We also use many destructive tools, and to be clear not all destructive tools are bad. Sledge hammers and wrecking balls are enormously destructive, but they also help us efficiently remove obstacles which are no longer safe or useful or prevent something better from existing. The destructive tools we use to secure a better tomorrow tend to also demolish the potential for any worthwhile future for those who do not share the specific ideals to create the new day we have in our minds.
We use tools like fear, doubt, anger, hatred, uncertainty, selfishness, ambition, secrecy, influence, isolation and stubbornness to insulate and incubate our efforts to create a better tomorrow. Why shouldn't we make use of these and all tools at our disposal? Tomorrow belongs to us. The reason we shouldn't use these destructive tools is that when tomorrow comes it's just as likely to find us on the receiving end of someone wielding their tools against us. As we have carved out our today by finding the best possible place to live, work, study, play, worship...live even if it means we have separated ourselves from those we think are undesirable, lazy, violent, different, dirty or poor, we could just as likely find ourselves perceived the same way by someone else more powerful than ourselves. There's no doubt that more powerful, influential, ambitious, stubborn, angry, hateful and manipulative people exist, and to deny their presence reflects a willful misunderstanding of the world.
The video at the top of the page shows a song from the musical Cabaret being performed at Auburn High School's CAPA theater program. The song is titled Tomorrow Belongs to Me and it's begun by my beautiful and talented daughter Mary. The melody and lyrics hauntingly betray the hopeful and even cheerful suggestion in the song's title. The reality that the singer's tomorrows are being shaped by the destructive tools wielded by the emerging Nazi party could easily be the anthem for so many groups today who find themselves on the business end of the wrecking ball. Whether it's refugees fleeing poverty, oppressive regimes or a corrupt and violent force causing social dysfunction, or it's an underemployed group of people who can't make enough money to purchase affordable health care, or young people of color dying by the hands of brazen authority who've lost the will to serve and protect, their voices will gather to meet the storm that awaits them.
