Last time I said the blog had "run its course". The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became of the truth. But I'm not about to quit, and I've done a much better job on here than most other parts of my life, so just a change is in order. Consider it a haircut for the soul.
"A Tree in Wind" was a fine title, and served me well for four and a half years. These were, without a doubt, the 4.5 most harrowing, emotionally intense years of my life, and that includes secondary school. But things (as things tend to) have evened out, we have settled in for some indeterminable period of anti-turbulence, and it is time to let go of the past. (At least, to do so in a healthy, reasonable, relatively non-destructive way.)
The point of that title, and the poem it came from, was that things sometimes happen without our say-so, and it can be that all we can manage is to react to them, hoping to grow stronger from the experience. I like that idea, but it's all about reacting and coming to understand the whys of the struggle, or the hows of the growth. Fine subjects each, but there comes a time -- and may it come soon for you! -- when you have bested the greatest of your demons, or at least set up a custody arrangement where they only get to wreck your life one weekend a month or so.
Up until now, my focus has been on digesting the past in order to better prepare for the future. But the past can't really prepare you for the future, because the world is wide, and full of things we have never encountered. It's true that the vast majority of your experiences will be pretty consistent with what you've already seen and done, so that past-analysis isn't time wasted. But eventually, you kind of plateau, and everything that happens is understandable, fitting neatly into one of the boxes you have prepared for, and you can be content.
Well I say screw that! Contentment is for chumps and people who wish they'd never been born in the first place. I'm here to make myself extremely uncomfortable until the day they pry the charred-black phylactery from my cold, skeletal claws. Dwelling on the past (if you're doing it right, that is: productively) is only ever going to make you feel better. Nothing but an eye towards the future can keep you ill-at-ease in the long run, and I've got at least two firmly fixed ahead.
So, Seventh Signal. Seven is an auspicious number, of course, and seven signs are referenced freely in a number of popular works. The core of the idea is that an event will occur, and there will either be some way of predicting it, or its very happening will coincide with these indicators by which you will know a prophecy has come to pass. What the actual signal turns out to be is irrelevant; barring the Discworld, these things come in sevens. I am going to bring them to you, or at least try to, though I'm more of a Cassandra than a Cassini these days.
Not everything can change, nor should it. The Disney reviews will continue. But I do aim to create a more collaborative atmosphere here, one way or another, such that I can come to see it as a place to learn as much as prattle. The majority of you are either shy, or interested only in using what I write as a springboard for jokes. I'm fine with both of those, but I think we can all do even better.
