Have you ever come across the phrase tabula rasa? It’s a Latin term meaning a “blank tablet or slate”, and has its origins in Ancient Rome.

You see, long before innovators such as Steve Jobs revolutionised the art of note-taking, the ancient Romans were using a different kind of tablet – not of the iVariety, but made of wax – to jot down their thoughts and ideas and, presumably, to take minutes at the next Aqueduct Review Meeting. Of course, they couldn’t just give their tablets a shake or press the backspace button if they made a mistake or doodled instead of inventing modern plumbing; instead, they were able to erase whatever they had written or drawn by reheating the wax from which the tablets were made, thereby literally “wiping the slate clean”. The tablet, therefore, became tabula rasa.

Many centuries later, the English philosopher John Locke repurposed the term and gave it a metaphorical connotation in his seminal Essay on Human Understanding, postulating that the “human mind at birth is a complete, but receptive, blank slate upon which experience imprints knowledge”.

And perhaps that is how we should view the New Year; not with preconceived ideas and expectations, but as a blank page in a book, waiting for you to write your story.

Join us as we embark on the next exciting chapter in the Epic of Centurion, and inscribe upon this blank slate a story that is guaranteed to have you spellbound from start to finish.