And think about this: according to Big Bang/Expanding Universe the star of origin of the photon that lands on my retina got “permission” to leave billions of years ago when they were actually in much closer approximation. So how did that photon somehow “know” where the atom in my retina would be when it finally finished the journey. It is almost like the analogy of “Breaking” the racked balls in billiards. At the origin of “The Big Bang” every subsequent interaction between atoms was already known and programmed when they were all in actual direct contact.
The photon from that distant star has something in common with the atom which it impacts ... they are both in a present temporal state. Photons cross the Universe (near or far) always in the present of their emission. There are four known variable expressions of dimension Time: moment, past, present, and future ... as far as we know so far. There are four known variable expressions of dimension space, as far as we know so far: point, linear, planar, and volume. The photon is a moment of time and a point of space, encoding energy. It crosses the Universe in linear space always in the present of its creation.