Long Time No See | Why I write this blog

Hi! So it’s been a while since my last article. When I started this blog half a year ago I was super determined not to let it slip away – I know I have so much I want to write about but I’ve never been one to get into a routine of work. The plan now is to maybe write stuff by Season, like a TV show – 10 articles per Season so I can work on them in one blast and release over 5 months. We’ll see how that goes (I might end up taking a 25 year break and coming back with a pretentious run of articles that don’t make any fucking sense. Looking at you, David Lynch). But first, let’s take a good long look at what’s occuring right now and a deep dive into why I’m doing this.

Since September, a lot has happened. It’s a very strange and exploratory time in my life and a lot of variables have been shaken up – I’ve moved to London, started a professional life and began working 9-5 to name a few. The tricky thing is I’m staring at one screen all day at work and the idea of coming home to tap away and stare at another isn’t that appealing (this doesn’t stop me from being playing Persona 5 non-stop…that’s a different thing entirely!).

Screen fatigue has been my main excuse for neglecting this place but now I’m determined to get back to it. A Bank Holiday weekend is great, but it’s even better when you have something to have a escape from, so I’m a lot more appreciative of the time I have now.

As I write this, I’m sat in the Barbican Centre – an amazing arts complex inside a crispy brutalist sugar shell (which is looking pretty lovely in the sun right now!). I’m determined to write something today and I guess that’s a mission accomplished already! It is tricky though, because I’m already tempted to call it a day. It’s difficult not to take the fact I managed to get out of bed, get ready, dressed and out of the house as a major accomplishment already (although I do this every working day regardless, like I’m on autopilot?!) and as long as I tell all my friends that I went to the Barbican Centre and wrote something then that’s the only thing which is important, right?

(The Barbican Centre is great by the way. I’ve not been to any events here but I’ve actually been in love with it since I got stood up for a date here a few months ago. Since then I’ve been driven to make the Barbican Centre a positive place in my head and it’s not been that hard to do so. Need to find an event here to write about…).

Anyways, my point is as follows:

If a tree falls in the woods, and somebody doesn’t make a Boomerang of it, did it really happen at all?

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I write this blog – do I purely want to get this stuff out there or do I just want to show people that I do it? That second reason is the most likely one why I started it. It started whilst I was job hunting and I decided to take on the advice I got from a speaker at a University media conference session on building a personal #brand. I hate to admit it but it did feel like a CV filler originally. Plus who doesn’t like to espouse their objective opinions on films, TV and music (nobody is going to read it anyways so I won’t get many people arguing with my hot takes!).

But now that I think about it, I don’t want to keep having that as the prime motivation for what I type – it’s always been an issue with me. I’m very good at telling people I do things without entirely following through. I’ve always been motivated by people telling me something is good without actually making something substantial of it for myself – whether it’s music or even my tweets!

A separate stream of thought for me though has been on a pretty deep set of subject matters – death, purpose and to a more pretentious extent: legacy. When I was little I used to get that fucking weird feeling in the middle of the night where I realised that one day I would die. I would articulate my hands and realise that I was in control of my body – this wasn’t a story I was watching – it’s a story I am living; The truth is that I wasn’t going to last forever and neither would my mum, my brother or my sister and it did often make me cry for a while.

I still do it sometimes but instead of being sad I just have a chuckle and find it pretty incredible how I exist, I’m young and still have plenty of time to find something to leave behind. It’s pretty deep, I know, but mortality is something everybody in the world is kind of numb and comfortable with. And not gonna lie, when I die I’m hoping to have a pretty funny funeral – I’ve been toying with the idea of keeping my ashes in a KFC bucket for a while…

But if you look at how people are remembered for what they do and contribute – like each time a celebrity passes away, or not even celebrities – normal people who you see in news articles. You get all kinds of reactions: love, hate, sadness and sometimes even jokes.

The last thing is pretty horrid when you think about it though. People joking about the life and memories of someone they don’t even know disappearing forever – all because they have a strange name or died in an absurd accident.

And I think – “If I ever make an early exit, what will I leave behind?” I guess my tweets and messages count in a pretty small way and people who miss me will always be able to read them. But more importantly is that my point-of-view – something that will most likely never be able to be directly captured (let’s not get too cyberpunk about this) – can be kept through my writing.

I’m talking out of my arse a little bit, but what I’m trying to say is everybody hears the same song differently and everybody sees the same film differently and I’m no exception. If I get what I see down in text – every nuanced little thought that I keep to myself or save for conversations with the very special people I call my friends, then I’ve got a snapshot saved of what I think right now about this film, game, TV show or song…

…and if anything happens to me, at least my thinking will always be on here – for my friends, my parents or my partner or my kids (wait, let’s not get ahead of ourselves) and even people who never even knew me.