Logs

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.

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