Tag: melancholy

#oneaday Day 770: February Blues

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It’s a long-held tradition in my family that the month of February is the best time to get really depressed and despondent about nothing in particular. I say “tradition”. It just seems to sort of happen sometimes, and as someone who struggles with depression at the best of times, I’m certainly not exempt from the February Blues.

I thought this year that I’d got away with it. It is, after all, almost the end of February and here I am having been feeling reasonably positive about things recently. I’m working, I’m enjoying it, I’m living in a place I like with a person I love and generally, things are pretty hunky-dory, whatever that means.

The last couple of days have seen a marked downturn in my mood, however. I’m not sure if it’s the weather, the fact it’s still getting dark quite early, the fact I’m tired, the fact I’m not sure if I’m ill or just have a bit more flatulence than usual — basically, though, something’s got my goat and is jiggling it around furiously, refusing to let go. (Note: “goat” in this instance is not being used to refer to my penis. The grabbing of that, refusing to let go and jiggling around is normally quite pleasurable, but that’s a topic best saved for another blog altogether.)

This is the frustrating thing about depression, particularly seasonally-affected depression, which is what I assume the “February Blues” are all about. There isn’t always a reason for it. Sometimes you just wake up of a morning, consider getting out of bed and realise that no, there’s not really anything exciting out there and it’s actually quite warm under the duvet and wouldn’t it be nice if you just closed your eyes again for a couple of minutes and relaxed and shit it’s midday and so on.

The above-described is also laziness, lethargy or whatever you want to call it, but it can be brought on by an irrational black mood. Sometimes the world is just inherently unsatisfying, leaving you wondering if there’s something better you could be doing, some greater purpose to your life.

Inevitably, the answer to those questions is “no”, so after a while you settle back into a nice comfortable routine of doing what you do and finding the whole thing perfectly satisfactory.

Sometimes asking those questions spurs you on to do other things, though. It’s from feeling bleak and wanting a convenient outlet that I started posting these daily blog entries after all, and now I feel they’re a big part of “me”. It’s just habit now, but when I casually mention to someone that I’ve written a blog post of varying quality every day for the last 770 days, they usually seem quite impressed. Most of them, too, are kind enough not to mention that if I hadn’t been wasting my time writing nonsense like this every day, I could have probably churned out a ton of novels by now. (I know this. Shush.)

Similarly, it’s from feelings of bleakness and blackness that I have started on exercise journeys several times — though at the times of the bleakest blackness it’s sometimes difficult to motivate oneself to proceed. (This is where a structured, scheduled programme like Couch to 5K comes into its own, as you then have feelings of guilt to contend with if you miss a session. Guilt is a powerful motivational factor, particularly if it doesn’t hurt anyone but yourself.)

Will these feelings spur me on to do anything this time around? I don’t know. I have a few irons that are not-quite-in-the-fire-but-at-least-somewhere-near-the-fire right now that I might give a poke from tomorrow. As previously mentioned, I’m running through Couch to 5K again. I’m still blogging. And I’m making sure to take the time to talk to friends both online and off.

February’s nearly over. And when it departs, may the colour come back to the lives of any of those of you who have been afflicted with a surfeit of blue.

#oneaday, Day 144: Another Multimedia Extravaganza

More pictures with sound for your delectation tonight. This time I thought I’d experiment with some black and white photos. I hadn’t originally intended to take the photos with a particular theme in mind, other than that I knew I wanted to try doing some black and white ones. When I loaded the pics onto my computer, though, it became apparent that I had managed to take pictures with almost no people in them whatsoever. This wasn’t intentional, but it provided a theme for the set anyway. I shouldn’t have told you that, you weren’t to know, were you? Let’s start again.

This is a set based on the theme of being alone.

Whew, got away with that, I think.

I can assure you that Southampton is just fine and has not suffered a 28 Days Later-style zombie apocalypse which emptied the streets. Some may say that’s a shame. But there are a few nice people here, so I don’t wish a zombie apocalypse on the whole place just yet. A few areas, perhaps.

The music for this particular slideshow is “Living with Determination” from Persona 3. It seemed a fittingly melancholy piece for the moody nature of the photos.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with how these pictures came out, and with the overall effect of the slideshow as a whole. It was an interesting day to take photos, actually. You can probably see how the weather changed as my journey progressed – it started dull and cloudy, but the sun eventually came out. The clouds stuck around, though, making for some dramatic, stormy skies. Hence the many pictures of clouds!

I’m definitely going to do more of these, as they’re fun and reasonably easy to put together. Plus it’s yet another means of self-expression, which is always good.

I’ve always enjoyed photography over the years. I remember getting a bit bewildered by an old film-based SLR camera back home with my parents, and later getting my own point-and shoot cameras, taking bajillions of photos and often being complimented for my good composition. Obviously I’m no pro and haven’t had any proper training, so I’m sure there’s all sorts of things technically wrong with them that I can do better. But as I used to tell people who came in wanting to learn about iPhoto and Aperture – if you’re not being paid for the pictures you take, whether or not you like them is the only important thing.

So true – for so many things besides photography, too. Sums up the whole idea of #oneaday, in fact, not to mention the photography-based variant #365. People are doing these things for themselves as a means to express themselves, develop their own skills and perhaps show off just a little bit. When other people end up appreciating your work, it’s always a pleasant surprise. And if they don’t like it, it’s the old artist’s defense – “it wasn’t for them anyway”.

So anyway. I hope you enjoy (or enjoyed) the slideshow. There will be more to come in the future as soon as I get back out there with my camera and get all snap-happy.