Patterns
6:05 PM, Wednesday evening. Sometimes I can become a slave to patterns. I like creating designs, rhythms, arrangements. Take this page for instance: a collection of entries, each prefaced by the time, a brief blurb, and the phrase, “I have nothing to say…” Each entry containing a related link. Patterns. I like them. However, patterns can become traps, as well. I don’t want to get tangled up in a web of my own spinning — so let’s alter things a bit this time, eh?
It seems to me that there is something magical in every season. Many people have favorites; I like each season in its own right. Though Autumn started officially with the Autumnal Equinox I never truly feel it until October rolls around. I like the change carried in the cooling air, the coloring of the leaves, the turning toward the holiday season. Autumn brings me inward, as Spring leads me outward…
The year is a pattern too, I suppose: a rhythm of seasons, a design of hours. It’s easy to fall into blind repetition. The security of a pleasing arrangement, the tradition of it, can be very enriching — and it doesn’t need to be tossed aside just for the sake of something new. But neither should a pattern be followed endlessly for the sake of convenience.
Better to use a good pattern as a frame — a place to paint new pictures from time-to-time. That’s another reason why I like October: it’s a time of tradition and a time of change.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot: I have nothing to say.
(I’m so predictable…)
— JWR, 1997
EDITOR’S NOTE: The date on this entry (and on all of the “I Have Nothing To Say” entries) has been arbitrarily assigned to preserve the sequence that they were originally posted in. All were written in 1997 but, at that point, I was only identifying my journal’s entries by the time at which they were written.