Archive

# It's funny when you look back and see how things have happened, things that did or didn't transpire, plans that didn't come to fruition.

On this day reminded me of the project I was working on two years ago, the book I wanted to write about my personal journey on the web, through social and beyond.

It didn't happen.

I'd written quite an extensive outline for much of it but realised that I no longer believed a lot of what it contained; my complete outlook on online life had changed.

I don't know if it was the depression kicking in and killing my enthusiasm for the project, imposter syndrome, or a combination of the two. One thing is for sure: the depression made me take stock and re-evaluate; I think it made me realise that I no longer felt a certain way - it revealed to me truths about what I was doing and where I was going with it.

I stuck things out for a few months but knew something had to change, I had to make a break and step away for my own sanity and the good of my mental health.

It took almost a year.

I was writing during this morning's session about my return to tinkering with the blog and surmised that there were two possible reasons for it:

• that I was looking for something I could control, could shape, and the blog thus becomes a metaphor or substitute for life, or
• that I am actually in a much better place, much happier than I was, so have regained that enthusiasm to tweak and tinker.

I'm definitely going with the latter, even if there might be an element of the former in there.

I feel that to successfully modify the site, to come up with new ideas, requires a certain clarity of thought that just wasn't there, wasn't possible, during my more down times.

For so long I was happy content willing to let things stay the same, stagnate even, both with the site and in life; an apathy had crept in that so frequently goes hand-in-hand with the depression and, as funny as it may seem, getting back to tweaking the blog is, I feel, a good indicator that I am on the right track.

Comments

# Liked: speak your mind - Julian Summerhayes...

# I've made some changes to the subscription side of things:

• the link in the footer now says "Join me" instead of Subscribe
• the text on the page itself is a little more inviting
• I've removed the link to the JSON feed for now
• the buttons on the mail form have been changed to "I'm in" and "No more"

I just wanted it all to be little less... stiff. There's probably more work to do but I need to get the "missive" mechanism working first.