- "Triseptennial-IPA".
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inception
Explore the inception,
where three arcs emerge,
heralding the past,
in tapestry vast.
EXPLORE: I. inception
In recent years nostalgia would hit often when Facebook's "On this day" feature showed me bygone events in my life. Each snapshot of a past milestone would trigger a torrent of memories and associated sensations.. but oddly, I couldn't help noticing that practically all of my life's big moments were clustered around the same dates. I started exploring this pattern further and soon realized that number 7 seems to be recurring in my life like clockwork – from travel dates, hotel room numbers, floor of my current apartment, business venture names ("The House of 7").. it was appearing everywhere. I got intrigued enough that I kept investigating further and further.
Soon enough I had to pause.. I realize one can connect anything he's determined to, however - what are the odds of every single past flight I looked up being or adding up to 7? My passport number. Phone number. Old licence plates. WTF, even my birthdate! The consistent appearance of number 7 in my life was bewildering. My inner sceptic urged me to dismiss it - "You're projecting, ever heard of apophenia?" .. "Sure, but things just keeps adding up to 7!" .. "You're just inventing." - which led me to remember an old quote from one of my favorite authors, a renegade scientist who cracked mysteries of electromagnetic propagation despite "the world" shunning his "invented mathematics", Oliver Heavyside: "There is no absolute scale of size in the Universe, for it is boundless towards the great and also boundless towards the small. Why should I refuse a good dinner simply because I don't understand the digestive processes involved?".
So, yes - I'll entertain the unorthodox, and employ it, when the conventional turns its blind eye to the phenomena outside the mainstream narrative. "We used to be free of such constraints, remember? Life and exploration of the fringe used to be so much fun, remember? (:". I remained attentive to number 7 and it became a heuristic lens through which I started dissecting my life, soon noticing a prevailing septenary rhythm that echoed the passage of time. I embraced the notion of septennials - the idea that I live my life in seven-year cycles. As I sectioned off my past into these increments, labeling each one with a dominant theme and significant events, a pattern began to emerge, each cycle a chapter in the greater narrative of my journey.
Amidst convalescence from illness, something unexpected happened in the digital world - my first solo album, a creation I let loose into the world a quarter of a century earlier (25 years, exactly - 2+5=7, again :), found new life and acclaim on YouTube. The renewed interest spurred contemplation of revitalizing my initial solo venture in vinyl form, tapping into the collective memory and enthusiasm of a growing fandom. But, as usual with my creative endeavors, scope started to expand rapidly..
"What if I do more than just re-release my first album? I've got so much more, including all the "Insurgent Orchestra" stuff I never got around to wrap up!", I mused. With my adopted organizing principle through 7, I was quickly able to segment my musical periods into three distinct septennial cycles. It all made sense, and as familiar patterns began emerging, a rush started descending upon me, the same rush I haven't felt in so many years - my creativity was surging and engulfing me so completely, that everything else was immediately put on hold. I worked tirelessly for 34 hours straight to recollect and review the entirety of my creative output, gather associated resources, research production requirements, then prototype and elucidate a draft of this intricate conceptual framework. Eat? Sleep? "Ain't nobody got time fo dat!". I felt so alive again!
I stepped back and looked at what I assembled.. the landscape of my past stretched out like a grand, vibrant canvas. Immediately, the adagio of retrospection enveloped me: the child's discovery, the private refinement, the harmony of collaboration, the hedonistic wanderlust, and the inaugurated atonement - all movements in a composition of my life. "Finish a few more tracks we found! Make it a quadruple vinyl! Release a CD collection as well! Write a book!", a loud inner voice kept pushing. I had to pause as scope-creep was getting completely out of hand here.. went to sleep, but it was a somewhat futile attempt in getting more grounded again. I was floating. Ideas kept soaring as the inner dialogue ensued:
"Stop it. You won't be writing a book, stick to the music. The music we have."
"But look at this! This is ripe for so much more!"
"Maybe, but be realistic. We gotta draw the line somewhere."
"What if I instead wrote a "booklet", an introduction, to at least explain how we came up with all of this?!"
"Stick to music."
"But it's a vinyl record! Triple at that. Plenty of space to fill up! Surely we won't be putting in many images!"
"Ok, you got a point there, but please - please! - don't overdo it. Just a brief introduction."
"Deal! ;)"
( he proceeds to write incessantly for weeks, in fact producing enough material for a sizable book, and designs a cover with 3000+ photos on it )
