Fresh post, because I don't want to attribute it to any one poster or any one line of thought, but these events - and many in P/R if I'm being honest - really give me pause as a human being. Seriously. The way some people assess and react to things out of their control gives me pause as a human being.
What kind of life do I lead? Am I some sort of freak? Do I need mental wellness consultations (therapy)? I mean, I know I do, but still. Why do I ask these questions?
My world is not black and white. My world is not constant. My world isn't the same now as it was 12 years ago, or 37 years ago. My world doesn't have fixed priorities that never waver, never come in conflict with other priorities, and never create difficult choices with no clear answer. My world isn't driven by non-negotiable deal-breakers, as much as I would sometimes wish that it was. My world isn't me unfailingly at my best self at all times, nor is it me predictably at my worst.
My world is a continuum. My world changes, sometimes day-to-day. My world is VERY different today than it was even two years ago, let alone 12 and 37 years ago. My world has multiple priorities - my physical health, my mental wellness, my families physical health, my family's mental wellness, our collective economic wellness, our collective happiness - and sometimes they conflict. Sometimes they create difficult choices. Sometimes there's no great answer, only the answer that spreads the least amount of pain/hurt. My world is filled with compromise and accommodation. My world is me ever-trying to be my best-self, but being human, making mistakes and being imperfect and sometimes inconsistent.
And you know what? NONE of those things are for anyone else to judge, or critique, or, necessarily, to know ANYTHING about unless I choose to tell them, and even then, they only get what I choose to tell them. I can't stop others from speculating, but they do so at their own risk, and at their own peril. THEY'RE NOT ME. They can sympathize, even EMPATHIZE, but they are not feeling MY emotions when I feel them and why.
I look at a decision made by an entity like Dream Theater, that IN REALITY isn't a family, isn't a business, isn't a single-man shop, but a mutating, swirling, ever-changing composition of all of those things at once. And as such, decisions may not make any sense to those not in the inner circle, regardless of what people say in any given interview at any given time.