The blog archives are full of old, dusty, unfinished thoughts. Previously, I’ve mentioned certain hesitations that I have, for fear of rambling. I’d cut my thoughts down and hit publish as soon as possible, just to quell some anxiety. Many entries published, with a secret, silent promise to revisit their ponderings in some follow-up post in the future. Published in haste for the sake of “updating regularly”. Yet, for all my rushed efforts to post frequently, I’ve failed to keep any regular schedules over the years. And now, I’ve made it to a future and those silent promises remain unfulfilled.
Mostly.
If you look closely, you may notice a sizable timeskip between this blog post and the last. I went down a rabbit hole of sorts and had a great deal of trouble making it back. Not exactly a Wiki rabbit hole, but close enough. I accidentally started working on something here and thought I’d only been at it for a few hours. Yet, when I finally emerged again, several years had gone by? In either case, I’ve finally returned, briefly, to say hello and show that I’m still alive and well.
Mostly.
In your Despair, you might believe that I’d abandoned this place.
If you frequent this niche little corner of the internet, you may have noticed a few changes here and there. Sections of The Archives moved around or altered. Art added or changed in different places. Comic pages changed. A portal to a special new wing of the archives. A special secret wing (still under construction). Dusting. Sweeping. Maintenance. Tidying up here and there. Greeting (or banishing) passing net bots. Despite my apparent absence, I’ve been right here, quietly tinkering and meddling about; but I haven’t actually been …here.
Or maybe I should say that I haven’t been very present.
One day, I wandered deep into …older sections of the Archives.
It’s a place of the past, well removed from today. Various doors, drawers, boxes; strewn about half-full with old unfinished thoughts, ideas, and observations. The more complete thoughts, still only partially or crudely recorded. Simple turns and momentary detours can cause lengthy diversions.
Originally, I was there to make notes for updates to that section of the archives. My notes were quickly done. However, I couldn’t help but gaze in fascination of my past self. I’m not one to regard their past selves with derision (…mostly). I glanced an old thought or idea here and there. Some of me from then is still consistent with the me now. There were moments where I felt as though I’d fallen through time, to a present from long ago. For moment, I didn’t know when I was. I really only meant to look around.
Reminisce.
But then, on a whim I began reviewing and categorizing older entries in the blog archives. Cleaning out trash. Sorting out tags and categories. Setting up some infrastructure for organizing information. It finally felt like the time to make the less perused corners of this site more organized and presentable. Just a whim. These liminal sections of the site aren’t parts you’d normally find yourself in, unless you’re a curious soul like myself. However, that’s something I intend to work on over time in the background. With that in mind, I started making my way out of the blog archives.
Then, I made a mistake.
One mustn’t gaze at their own unfinished thoughts and ideas for too long.
As I was down there, trying to be a good little archivist, some text caught my attention. Then, as I made my way out, it caught my attention again. It was probably some innocuous thing, but I remembered my many silent promises; and made a change. A minor correction. Easily unnoticed unless you knew it was there. But You and I know how these things typically go. After the first change, it was too late. I was already too far gone. In truth, this rabbit hole had actually been the open maw of a great serpent, momentarily relinquishing its own tail. I crawled right into its belly before it closed its mouth and split the big egg again. Where am I?
One change begot the next. Just like the snake …there probably could be an end. If only I would stop biting my own tail. But instead, I continued making changes.
Naturally, this meant that there were certain …consequences.
An Unfortunate Consequence of Meddling with Unfinished Thoughts.
Normally, I’m no stranger to getting absorbed in an engrossing task. I’d jump in, get absorbed, and get as much done as I can manage. Occasionally, I’d endeavor to return to the surface of my consciousness and look around. This post is one such occasionally. From my perspective, I was only down there for a few hours total. But I now come to find that my labours have caused years to pass by. I suppose, such is the wibbly wobbly nature of time. Eventually, I realized that my tinkering was also meddling with time in a way. In turn, however, time meddled with me and yoinked back me to the wrong present. And I’m still in the belly of that snake!
But it opened its mouth just long enough for me to drop this blog entry.
Unfortunately, I’m unable to tear myself away this labour completely yet. By this point, I’m finally over halfway done and I can’t bring myself to stop now. The snake’s belly is quite warm and cozy now. The good news is that the latter half of this task shouldn’t take as long as the earlier portion. All throughout this project, there’s been some amount of reconciliation between my various past selves. As I get closer and closer to the present, that reconciliation takes less and less effort. That however is a thought that I’ll explore in a separate entry. Next time (maybe), I’ll be far less vague about what that hell I’ve actually been up to.
But for now, talking about it all this way was way more fun.
