On The Cyclical Nature; Ouroboros — A Meandering Personal Essay

Most things exist in seasons. The wheel of the year turns in a never ending cycle from spring to winter, from life to death and rebirth. So too our lives tend to go in cycles — at least mine has.
There are times of contentment, and times of chronic dissatisfaction, ups and downs, happiness and sadness and peace and turmoil. These aren’t always linked to any external events, they just are what they are and I have come to accept them.

The Ouroboros is a snake devouring itself, and by doing so it is eternally living and dying and creating itself anew. This has been endeared to me for years as a symbol of the way I view myself — my cyclical nature and my need to refresh every so often, to start new, to recreate, to rethink and abandon and adapt. Each season brings new characteristics, new colours. The Ouroboros, being a snake, is also therefore linked to shedding skin…

We’ve never stayed in one place more than a couple years….

I love moving house. My wife absolutely hates it — but I love it. The act of seeking out a new space, deciding which one to go with, making the negotiations, getting rid of the stuff we don’t want to keep, finding stuff that we’d forgotten all about, and finally moving everything into the new place, setting it up just right, and settling in to make it a new home. I just love it. A chance to start fresh. It’s all very cathartic for me.

I don’t stay put for long. I’ve always been moving around, and this is reflected even in my hobbies. From musical instruments of all kinds, to metal detecting, to genealogical research, writing stories, to photography and video and other types of art. I may never be a master of anything, I have too many interests to stick to one thing.

As Kierkegaard said

“It is perhaps the misfortune of my life that I am interested in far too much but not decisively in any one thing; all my interests are not subordinated in one but stand on an equal footing.”

What is next for me, I have no idea. There are always creative projects I want to explore, and they almost always have to do with my writing — but I want to be good at it. The only way to do that is to just do it. This blog has helped quite a lot, I think. As much as I just spend my time rambling, it helps to have an audience to respond to the rambles occasionally.

I would like to move this blog into a more interesting place, I feel the need to recreate and analyse what it is I’d like to put out there. Not just photography, more writing, both personal and commercial perhaps. I am by nature intensely introverted and quite private, at the same time I have this strong desire to be seen, to be known. However, I really question the value of my insights and thoughts. My life has been a struggle to find the balance between these realities.

The serpent is also a symbol of knowledge, even wisdom. These are qualities that I want to embrace as ideals to live up to. Dante says “'Consider the seed of your generation: You were not born to live like animals; But to pursue virtue and possess knowledge.'”

I am the Serpentine Ouroboros, shedding skin, devouring my tail in a cycle of death and rebirth.

Could you please pass the salt?

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