blog.djstead.net

  A year ago today I woke up feeling the closest to nothingness, that I hope I ever experience. Quite what had led me to this low point, I am not sure, other than a combination of factors; but I grow increasingly certain that one of the main reasons I felt so down is because of the recent realisations of how good life can be. That, and an imbalance of chemicals in my brain. Soon after I took on a course of anti-depressants, which I finished in time for my 42nd birthday, and the start of the Year of the Dan. And as I start to emerge from my Project Chrysalis, I've taken to the idea of rebirth as an appropriate analogy for what I am now navigating. - But I wanted to try and capture exactly what it feels to be just one year old. Because it's actually quite challenging to realise. A lot of who I was before my rebirth seems to be lost to memory [as in, I can still remember bits of it; I have recollections of key moments and many people]; I just don't relate  to that person any m...

  I think what I was trying to convey in my previous entry is perhaps more concisely talked to as a process of being reborn . Which is both unsurprising, given that I have been referring to these past number of series as Project Chrysalis; and also is quite a significant concept that I want to get my head around a bit more: Not just something to be neatly encapsulated as a phrase. = The realisation I have had is that: I have, in insulating myself whilst recovering from a bout of depression; I have jettisoned a great deal of what made up who I was, and how I felt about the people and experiences I have had in my life. As I tried to say last time; the way I am going about things these days feel different to how they did a few years ago, and across the two decades before that really. And this is not a conscious decision - I seemed to recall that I quite enjoyed those lives that I have had; and see no surface reasons as to why I would change that approach - but clearly the chemicals i...

There are approximately 17 years between these photos (5 or 6 years between each); all of which are undoubtedly of myself - but also are examples of four (of many more) previous versions of myself. The first is I think shortly after university, settling into a shared house - in the peak years of following a wide variety of European metal bands across the continent - spending hours (most days) in an internet chatroom of similar minded/humoured folk. The second is embedded in my Leeds-based social group; this was taken on the Three (Yorkshire) Peaks Challenge in or around 2011. I don't have much to report on from that period of my life - perhaps maybe it was simply unremarkable - but I would spend plenty of my social time with groups of people, maybe still at gigs - but often online playing games, or visiting folks at weekends. The third is early into my realisation that Polyamory (as I labelled it then) was for me. I think it is actually after my first real relationship; but when I ...

  Nearly six years ago I listed a few of my favourite things ; the first of which was Early Spaceflight - which was absolutely true at the time, and I think still remains correct. But it is interesting how over six years, my relationship with the moon and space can shift.

  This is my latest treat to myself. It's an Mp3 player. You know, like we used to have? Way back when in - oooh - the early 2000s?! That's basically it. You attach it to your computer via USB; you transfer some Mp3 files across; you plug in your headphones and you listen whilst you walk/bus/train somewhere. All whilst not being on your phone. I tried it out on a long canal walk yesterday, and it was blissful . I got right back into listening to Muse's 'Absolution', and was immediately air-drumming along, no doubt to the amusement of the ducks/other towpath users. And one of the things I realised yesterday was that whilst I have a good collection of music now; mainly metal, but also some classical, and - more recently - some different genres to those; I don't have as wide a collection as I would like. So this is where YOU come in [yes, you!]: I would like you to send me your recommendations for some albums that I should listen to from start to finish. No real re...

  I'm very much in project mode, as the MoGian year draws to a close, and the Year of the Dan approaches. A couple of those projects seem similar - I am working on curating my music collection for the purposes of putting onto a - gasp - portable MP3 player, that I can use to solely focus on enjoying that music (and hopefully new music) again. Part of which also includes a long-running plan to condense all of my years of musical listening into eight compilations. Another project is to curate my remaining DVDs into a 'definitive' collection. IE taking a snapshot of where I am today, and all the films that have helped define me; and corralling those into some sort of collection also. Aside from the obvious difference of medium - one purely audio, another audio-visual - they do feel similar, and both sit under the wider category of 'refining what I retain in physical form', by way of hopefully reducing the amount of physical possessions I have. But what is curious are a...