OPENING A DOOR TO A WORLD OF ENDLESS POSSIBILITY

Hmmm, on the occasion of my 150th post, perhaps a look back will help me look forward. Where have I been these last three years and where should I point my feet for the future?

A little over three years ago, I launched Metaphors of Life Journal – AKA Things That Make Me Go Hmmm with the intent of promoting myself as a writer. I had no sense at the outset how difficult it would be to find something worthwhile to write about each and every week.

Are there really 150+ things worth commenting on? Truth be told, I’ve recycled a lot of the same themes and attacked them from a slightly different perspective. There may only be a handful of things worth writing about but endless points of view from which to explore them.

So what do my Blog statistics have to say about what you – my readers – found most interesting?

By far, my most read post is When I Grow Old and Wear My Trousers Rolled ( http://tinyurl.com/4f8pfqj ) – using a line from T.S. Eliot’s renowned poem “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” to inspire an exploration of memory time capsules from my 50 odd years of life. I’ve been inspired to revisit this theme a couple of times and I haven’t tired of it yet.

My blog counter reports a mind boggling 21,957 visits to that post. I venture to say that at least half of those visits where search engine spiders. But that still leaves almost 11,000 visits – by design or by chance – to that one post. Nostalgia, it seems, is a rich vein for all of us.

I must confess that I can’t fathom why Random Act of Metaphor: October Flocks of Geese ( http://tinyurl.com/24fj3kw ) ranks second at 4,623 visits. I was simply pondering the points of view that could be extracted from “two flocks of geese bisecting the sky in opposite directions against the stirring vista of October’s extravagant panorama”. Perhaps one of you can shed light on why that simple subject made such a connection.

My very first post entitled The E Principle ( http://tinyurl.com/4g2p3y5 ) ranks third at 2,989 visits. I can better understand the popularity of this post as it explores the “e-volution” of our world – how technology has impacted our interpersonal relationships. I imagine we all wonder from time to time if technology has redefined our relationships in ways that push us farther apart rather than closer together.

The 2010 Winter Olympics inspired the number four post on my top five at 2,324 visits. Reebok, Crosby and Joannie Rochette ( http://tinyurl.com/4sdxobs ) was a bit of a rant on the $10,000 reward offered by Reebok for the return of the hockey stick Sidney Crosby used to score the winning goal for Canada in the Gold Medal Game. Thanks Sidney – I have no doubt that the popularity of your name as a keyword search propelled this post to its high ranking.

I confess I am rather fond of the number five post on my most viewed list at 1,341 visits. Blue Smoke, Black Ice and a Bucket List ( http://tinyurl.com/36h4vt5 ) dealt with the realization that our fate is not always in our hands and how that can give us pause to stop, recalibrate and rethink the path we are on.

My blog statistics indicate that 63,678 visits have been made to my blog over the past three years. Let’s reduce that by a factor of 4 to eliminate web spiders and the people who dropped in by accident for a few seconds only. That leaves almostm 16,000 visits or over 5,000 per year.

Metaphors, it seems, are popular critters. I have discovered that viewing life through the lens of metaphor connects the past to the present. It helps us understand those fundamental truths that endure through time, through ever accelerating change and through the uncertainty of what is yet to come.

Metaphors open a door to a world of endless possibility – and that is why I love to wonder about within them. Here’s to another 150 Deep Dives, Shifting Winds, Sudden Lights, Songs of Nature and, of course, Random Acts of Metaphor.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

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