Things to come

Kato Natsuki can move over for a little while and make room for Jazz just for the fun of it on my photoshopped edition of April's 'JJ Magazine.' My inspiration is not my connection with this publication but more of what I read on the cover.
The words are unchanged from next months actual issue and in some perverse idea of looking for omens and hints about the future there are two subheadings on the cover which caught my eye and for the purpose of this blog are worthy of investigation.

人生変わっちゃうかも！
"Maybe she will change my life"

関西トレンドHOT HIT 100連発
the explosive 100 hot hits of Kansai trends.

Of course we can read into what we will and if there is one thing that people are good at it, then is making connections and looking for patterns. Even if there are none we can still find some! Kansai is the area in which Osaka is located and reading that along with the fact that she will change my life, as if she hasn't done so already, I start to wonder. Like so many people, I can also make connections from nothing and read into it all manner of fantasy and unlikely scenarios. So if I were the type of person to see strange omens and portents and signs of things to come, I would smile at seeing this. These secret things foretold in the cards, in my name, in my palm and also predicted by my exact birth time then I may look at the real sub headings of next month's issue and think 'are they trying to tell me something' like she will change my life in Osaka? The fates often throw us hints!

The world is full of people who can claim to be able to foresee our future and for one or two thousand yen you can have the person sitting across from you tell you what they see that the fates have planned for us in the future. I have sat with them, I won't deny it and some of the things they've told me has sometimes baffled me in how accurate they were and even more chilling, how accurate they were much later. Every time I visit the shrine I buy my "omikuji" paper fortunes which will tell me my luck both good and bad.
From the big businessman way up there on the top floor down to the reception workers on the bottom floors, all have all had to make decisions about some aspect of their lives and I guarantee that many of their choices have been made purely upon the words that the fortune tellers have whispered into our ears.

If we step away from our superstitions and our curiosity about seeing tomorrow for a moment and look through the eyes of cold emotionless logic and that's not something I do often, although perhaps I should. The reader or teller in front of us often uses the two biggest tools of manipulation that many other people use, like sales-people, advertisers and even faith healers. These are suggestion and flattery and they are combined in such a way that you begin to see more in their words than perhaps there really is. We all have this need to make sense of what we witness and by proof you all know how the frustration of how an unsolved mystery feels. So naturally we try to make sense of what our fortune predicts and no matter how silly our conclusions are from making sense of what we have been told, they are our conclusions and we tend to put a lot of faith into that. It is often said that the road of discovery, although often exciting is filled with both wonder and folly. We are also a bit self centered and have unrealistic and distorted perceptions of ourselves. Did you think that the amusement park mirrors are the only reflections of self distortion? We more often think of ourselves how we wish we were rather than how we actually are.
The key phrase here would be subjective validation. A few people use it as a tool, many many of us make choices based on it and other 'gut feelings' but all of us should know what it is. Subjective validation is best thought of as being almost to a fact that we will consider something to be correct if it has a personal meaning to us.
Realistically I can see that and understand it but I let my emotions get in the way and I like to see the world as something a little more than a fairly interesting piece of dust on a galactic microscope slide.
Do I believe in magic? Sometimes!
Do I believe in fortunes?
Some of my past experiences with the revelations of the prophets, and I am aware of the hits and misses ratios, seem to give weight and substance to the words they gave me and in a sense they also point to my description about subjective validation. But even if I should look at what they say with no more credence than general good advice, then I have to consider that every single experience in my life so far, including listening to my fortunes, will have had some effect on the decisions I made in both creating and living in my future.

As another sign of things to come, Hitomi has another venue event over in Kobe for three days.
I will make some inquiries about any options that may exist for a possible transfer into our Osaka office.

I can no longer hide behind what I have now. She has to have the room to expand without me holding her back. If we try and don't make it, then no one can say we didn't at least try and we will still have something to fall back on so the risks are not as great as some people have faced in finding their dreams.
I love her and I support her in many ways so it is only right that I support her in her dream.


What happened to Kato Natsuki, the real cover model in April's JJ magazine?
She's here and she can rightfully claim back her place.
Sorry Kato, forgive me my fantasy.


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This Blogger, Suraya copied me as everyone knows:
http://surayadd.blogspot.com/


As soon as she copied my post from A Peach Colored day I thought this one is young and knows no better. Here is the screen print I promised her that I'd remove if she changed her post or credited me.

She changed it and I removed my complaint from the foot of my blog entitled "A Little Spice." and I had thought this would be an end to it.

Now she writes in my chat box as if she is innocent. I go look at her blog and I see she has copied again from an early blog of mine.



This time it is just the opening of my second paragraph from a blog I posted in 2004, entitled "The end of an era"
And I take another screen print to prove it!

CLICK THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

This girl is guilty of blatant plagiarism and must be desperate for blog content to copy me!