Yeah, people change. Stress and guilt press them so hard, that their entire personalities change. Also, finding good things does the same thing. It's really about making smart decisions and confronting your own demons. As the changeling is a turn of attitude, and you must fight it within yourself, not in others.

Or... you can just have a symbolic decade in 3193 where you celebrate its completion, and do a program on the history of that 1200 years. As the last year can be a sort of resting year, where you celebrate history, and see the thing as a time capsule. If this can actually get completed, that'd be extremely impressive. 1200 years would bring us back to the time of Cuchulain and Arthur. If humans could achieve this feat of patience, even pushing past the existence of entire empires--there's no saying Germany will be a thing 1200 years from now--that'd be impressive and a feat for all mankind. Especially without change to the design.

I think Tolkien's whole spiel, is creating technology that harmonizes with nature, both human and the earth. He got that from William Blake, which I know for a fact, he had to have some contact with Jerusalem. As the two have nearly identical themes. Like that is the meaning of TLOTR, and Sauron is not Hitler, but unchecked industrialization. It's more the conflict of World War I and not actually World War II, which is why he always hated allegory.

But that could also be the fact that Industrialization was seen as something like a Plague in the English Conscience, from even the time of William Blake, and that theme arose organically in Tolkien's mind. That's always possible, too, as communication works that way.

Tolkien, for instance, got the Ring of Power from The Elder Edda, and so did Wagner, and that's why the two are so similar, and sometimes Tolkien is erroneously said to have been inspired by Wagner, when he really was inspired by Seamunder.

But I say World War I because he saw no man's land, and the beginnings of modern warfare. That was the first modern war, and it destroyed so much of the pastureland and green, and it was the result of industrialization frustrating people. You can see film of people right on the cusp of World War I in old Film Reels, how they're kind of lackadaisical, and don't understand how to navigate the streets right, and kind of dreamily go about their business in shock by all the new advancements of technology. That's the ring of power, is that corruptive influence of power and greed, combined with the destruction of the Earth through industrialization. Smoke chimneys creating black smog that would choke out entire communities; strip mines; bad civil engineering geared more toward what's practical than what's beautiful. Mr. Scrooge is more Sauron than Hitler. It's just that wasteful greed and mindless destruction.

{}It's a religious allegory, stating how people have what they need already, and just need to find it within themselves. [It's] the same weird crap they do with Lewis Carroll, when the meaning is pretty straightforward. The Scarecrow needed a brain, but was the planner. The Tinman wanted a heart so he could love, and destroyed himself over it, but was actually the most tender character. And the Cowardly Lion was courageous. They thought they lacked what they actually had in great abundance already, and just needed to realize it, which the Wizard does by simply tricking them with common everyday items.

I mean, sure, there's a lot of poetry. Like the Green Glasses are just about how magic and faith make the world more beautiful, but the Wizard is also powerless against the witch and her flying monkeys. 

Know I'm a Christian, but this vein of Agnosticism is in the Emily Dickenson vein, which is kind of wonderful and beautiful. Not the vulgar thing it became, but rather a truth wrapped up in a veneer of atheism, and imbibed with Christian ethics.

I also think this is why Mark Twain hated people making metaphors with his work. He wanted depth, but not this level of depth [with regard to it being a political allegory]. Sure, some of that may be inspiring it, to a certain degree, but the surface reading is still the most sound and beautiful.

Again, I am a very faithful Christian. I just like to get my stories right.

And then there's the plotting pantser, who does both. As Ray Bradbury says, you need to surprise yourself with what you write. It's all about the surprise. But I like a general goal, or idea. Like, stories will be playing in my mind for years, sometimes, and then just get put down on the paper one day, when I've collected enough material to write it.

I usually make outlines of many stories, or sometimes I pants them. But, I always have a general goal of where I want it to go. But, sometimes I don't. I incorporate all disciplines into my writing routine. A lot of essay, a lot of poetry, and some short stories or novels. Like I'm all about the idea; making the audience think. And all about Metaphor and packing as much thought into each line as I can. A lot like George Eliot or Adam Smith, but not quite as dense as them. Like, they're on a whole other level. Like Adam Smith or George Eliot could hit thirty extremely dense ideas in two paragraphs. Every line was poetry.

I don’t particularly like “Metaphysics” as a word for simply stating “What is”. It’s kind of a messy middle man, that proves a difference between people who perceive things right, and people who can’t. If anything, the mere invention of the word proves the bulk of humans are liars.

I simply think the concept of relating what you know to the bedrock of reality, that is what Metaphysics is. But so many people can’t do that, it’s almost impossible at a point to go around in silly arguments with them. So generally, what happens is it becomes mystified, and then mocked, and then locked away as a secret.

You need both Cuing and Phonics. That's the best program. Not one or the other, but both combined. Because phonics helps you sound the word out, but cuing helps you look at the surrounding words and paragraphs, to intuit a meaning, so you don't have to be running to the dictionary all the time--basically, using what's surrounding the text, to assume a word's meaning. That's how I got so good at reading. Sometimes, you just got to ignore a word or assume its meaning. If it's absolutely necessary to know to comprehend something--and you can be taught how to do that, too--you look it up. Also having a core intuition of latin prefix and suffixes helps too. That's a huge part of reading retention, learning how to break words down into their phonyms and understand its meaning through that.