The Process of Letting Go

The hand behind us holding onto the past keeps us from moving forward.

There are times I feel this restraint, yet it is so hard to let go. My hand grasps onto the familiar, the comfortable, the well-known feeling of nostalgia in my grasp. I get the same feeling from movies and pop-culture these days, slaves to ideas thought of thirty to forty years ago.

Even when new ideas are tried within these frameworks, which is stupid to begin with, the antibodies of fandom break the new ideas apart. But if one markets to nostalgia, that is the world you accept to live in - you cannot do anything new because the promise is to deliver the same old. Break that, and you cause anger. The promise is broken.

Best to do new things. Best to move on.

If you are looking for new ideas in old places you are looking in the wrong place. Content based on nostalgia is tied to it. Otherwise, you decrease the value of it. Most of what Hollywood does these days is akin to recycling. We get caught up in the fandom. They sell us expectations of the old and deliver something we don't want. It is not their fault, they are the ones who signed up for shipping the same old tired pop-culture tropes to our eyes and ears.

The artists fight and try their best to do something new, but the weight of corporate profits and the unstoppable forces of nostalgia will crush their hopes and dreams to "change things."

Batman and Iron Man can never really be changed. Ever.

They will "link" new characters and ideas to them to try to get you to buy, but those spin-offs will fade away compared to the might of the original idea. Your "Iron Boy" or "Bat Friend" character will never live up to the shadow of the original. Your creation shall forever be compared with it. And it will be forgotten when the next company buys the IP and reboots the entire universe again.

Best to be original.

Best to live out here in nowhere land.

Best to let go of those characters created 40 years ago in another time, by dreamers long gone. Respect them, enjoy them, but never be slaves to them.

You are the dreamer today.

Your ideas need to be the ones people 40 years from now will endlessly copy.

~Sylvie

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