Category Archives: Writing

books, creativity, essay, Writing

Returning to the page: creation vs consumption

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I have been reflecting a lot on the reason why I stopped writing. Going down this blog it is very clear to me that there is a direct correlation between when I stopped writing and when I joined Instagram.

I will say that I am one of those people who has a panic about the impact of technology and social media at least every few months. In fact, I believe I have blogged about digital minimalism here before so this is not a new topic for me in the least.

However the thing that I’ve never fully explored and fleshed out for myself is the impact of consumption (the constant ingestion of social media content) and creation.

When I first joined instagram I remember being excited and inspired. Everywhere I looked I was encountered people, like myself, who loved books and wanted to share their love with others. It was colourful, eclectic and alluring. I found myself sinking hour after hour into the app. At first as a creator; taking pretty pictures of books and writing thoughtful reviews. However as time went on I saw myself changing a few things about myself. I started reading books that would be deemed popular, taking the safer side and “loving” every book I read. I found myself taking in more and more opinions about books and slowly only caring about the type of pictures on my feed.

This, in my opinion, was the final suppression of my creativity. After battling through a mentally demanding day job, reading books I had very little interest in and expressing watered down opinions accompanied by pretty pictures was stifling. I lost interest in writing and whilst over the past year I’ve rediscovered my passion for reading by diverging from the popular reading list, I never quite managed to revive my creativity because I was still giving away a lot of my time to Instagram. I became a consumer and sacrificed my creativity in the process.

This is by the way not how all creativity is dimmed. I would assume that for most people they have the ability to juggle the roles of consumer and creator quite well. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.

And so where does that leave me? Does this mean I have to delete all my social media in order to return to the role of creator? What is this is at the cost of no one ever seeing what I create? Does that make me less of a creator?

If I’m being honest I am still pondering these questions. I know that there are no hard rules about consuming and creating except that a balance should be struck. I know that this balance will be and should be cyclical depending on what I am willing to gain and/or lose. I know that at this point, in order to return to the page, I need to cut down on one of my biggest vices; Instagram! Whether this will lead to me leading with my creator foot as opposed to my consumer foot, only time will tell.

creativity, essay, Writing

Returning to the page: what is a writer?

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Lately I have been thinking about becoming a writer again. I use the words “writer” and “again” very loosely because even with the biggest stretch of these words I am still wondering “Am I really a writer?”

This is an important question because in my profile I very much identify myself as one. Even though according to the online definition “a person who writes books or articles to be published” I most certainly have no right to identify as such.

I have never really finished a book and ignoring the very short stint I had at university as a political/social columnist I have never written any articles to be published.

I, however, in my hearts of hearts (and on any other social media platform) claim to be a writer. I do this because writing is the title that feels most natural to me. I have identified as some sort of writer since I won my first poetry competition at 8 years old. I continued to call myself a poet until I was 12 when I after winning an essay competition I decided that the term “writer” suited me a bit more since I was obviously a writing marvel capable of moving from medium to medium.

Over the past few years though, since moving to London, I have found that this title that I so loved and bestowed upon myself is slipping further and further away from me. I am writing less. I am thinking about writing less. I have neglected the very thing that brings me the most joy, peace and sense of accomplishment because whether I am published or not I always feel as though I have eaten a full meal when I place that last full stop on any original piece of writing.

And so a gift I am giving myself for my 35th birthday (in January 2025) is a return to the page. A return to writing. A return to my most comfortable identity. A return to being a writer, again.

creativity, essay, interesting reads, lifestyle, Self care, Writing

CAPITALISM V HOBBIES

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I have been thinking a lot about what it means to have a hobby in a capitalist society. How do you fuel that hobby? Do you have limits for how much money and time you spend? Are we even allowed to spend money on a hobby? Not a side hustle, not a thing that brings money in, but something that requires that you spend money and time on it in a way that isn’t financially rewarding. How are we navigating that in the year 2021? 

Recently I have been indulging my hobbies in a big way. I am spending my evenings reading and not putting in that extra hour at work after 7pm. I am posting all my books on instagram and engaging with other readers on the platform. And most recently, I have started a YouTube channel and I am giving my Saturdays to filming and editing. I have chosen a hobby in books and I am giving it all my time and some of my money and it feels strange. 

I think for some of us the idea of the “hobby” is something new. Don’t get me wrong, I have always known about hobbies. I have listened to people talk about how they really love learning about nautical knots. I have watched videos of people gush about their latest outdoor adventure. And I have read about people who collect stamps, coins and even feathers. So I am aware of the concept of having a hobby.

Over the past few years I have allowed myself to dip my toe and indulge in my hobbies so long as it didn’t take any money and time from me. I started this blog but maintained that I didn’t want to spend money on it and that I would only write if I HAD the time (whatever that means). I have read books but on the condition that they cost me very little and that most of them should be books geared towards finance that would teach me something new that I can apply to my daily work. I even went as far as limiting myself to only reading non-fiction at some point, figuring that if I was going to spend my time on reading without compensation then I should be learning something new about topics that I rarely ever cared about. 

The notion of doing something away from my work that didn’t bring me any additional income seemed irrational to me.  It made me feel as though I was wasting the most precious commodity to me; which is time. 

I didn’t consider joy. I didn’t consider fulfilment. And I certainly didn’t consider whether or not this was making me a better person in the long run. All I cared about for a long time was that my time was spent “productively”, whilst never stopping to question what productivity was for me. 

Now I realise the great place of privilege I am in to even be able to think about the concepts of hobby versus capitalism. I think there are very few people in this world who can choose how they spent their “free” time (the concept of “free time” in itself is outrageous) and there is an immense level of unfairness in that alone. I do however think that it is a topic worth discussing and thinking about, and I wanted to offer my contribution to that discussion here. 

Capitalism has brought about so many convoluted understandings of what it means to be productive. I, of course, have only been alive during this century but I would hope that there was a point in time when humans did not decide their value in the world based on how much we get done in a day. Unfortunately any study of history dashes any of these hopes as it it becomes clear to everyone that capitalism has always been the great decider.  

When we decide to indulge in our hobbies the first thing that we have to consult is capitalism, capitalism has to give us permission. Capitalism has to dictate how much time, how much money and how much effort we put into that hobby.  Capitalism has to tell us that it’s okay to produce something other than that which will yield an income, capitalism has to tell us that we can breathe and that we can take a break from always serving the system. 

I think one of the greatest leaps that we as humans can take is deciding to take reigns of our productivity away from capitalism by not allowing it to tell us what we produce, how we produce and how much of we must produce. I am new to the world of hobby and I am still very much working fifty hours of the week and it would be completely disingenuous of me to pretend that I don’t enjoy 80% of my job. I don’t want to sit here and pretend that I don’t get an immense sense of purpose when I solve a complicated problem or when I reach a deadline that capitalism has set for me. What I do want to do, and urge that you try and do, is to stop often and ask yourself how much of how you move through this world is dictated by capitalism. 

If your goal is to make sure that every moment of your waking time is spent maximising the amount of money you make – that should be your choice and you should go forth and rock the world with your focus and ability to stay on course. 

If your goal is to indulge in some side work that brings you both joy and income – then by all means, go on with yourself self-aware self and conquer. 

But if your goal is to carve out time where you serve the capitalist machine and some time where you feed the hobby machine without limits and expectations – then there is a place for you to exist in this spectrum of the world. 

There’s enough room under the moon for us to all feel good about how we spent our hours and why we spend our hours. I am currently on a mission to find a happy little medium, I hope you find yours too.  

Thank you for reading and please remember to be kinder than you think is necessary. 

See you in the next one. 

Book Reviews, books, fiction, interesting reads, lifestyle, Uncategorized, Writing

Little Fires Everywhere Book Review

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Last weekend, Easter weekend, was a great reading weekend. I finished off two books and started two new books. This is a big deal for me because it means that I managed to convince myself that the world would not collapse with me fully immersed in reading and away from my laptop. Two of the books I read last week were about fire, one book was about two children who spontaneously combust (Nothing to See Here book review coming soon) and the other was a little well-known book called Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.

Little Fires Everywhere has been on my radar for a long time. Most probably since it came onto the scene and it was mentioned by some pretty famous book clubs. It is always a bit hard to read a book that is overly hyped, for no reason other than feeling really bad when you don’t like it. Like maybe there’s something intrinsically wrong with my literary palate.

Over the years however I have discovered that I struggle to read overhyped books because I build a pretty strong wall of expectations and if the author is unable to climb that wall and reach my unrealistic anticipations I tend to not enjoy the book and I rarely ever finish the book. With Little Fires Everywhere however I decided to get over myself and just read the darn book!

With all that being said I walked into Celeste Ng’s book with very little knowledge of the storyline. I didn’t know any of the characters, I’d never actually read or watched a single book review, I just knew that it was a good book that had been on Reece’s book club in 2017. This is a great way to get into a book because I went in with no truths or beliefs that I needed to be confirmed.

The book starts off at the tail end of the story in that it starts with a fire and the rest of the book takes us through the events leading up to that fire. We are introduced to an upper middle-class family the Richardson’s and their two mysterious tenants mother and daughter, Mia and Pearl. Mia and Pearl move into a home owned by Mrs Richardson whose family has been part of the Shaker Heights community for three generations. The community is a perfectly planned community where everything is orchestrated according the Shaker Heights by-laws. The grass is cut at a certain height, the houses are all painted the same colours and the people in Shaker tend to all follow a strict set of rules. Shaker seems like a place that Mia and Pearl who have been nomads for all of Pearl’s life would not fit in, but of course they manage to fit in with Pearl befriending the Richardson children and Mia taking on one of the children, Izzy, as somewhat of a protégé.

As I have stated I went into the book with no background about what the book is about. The one thing I enjoy about reading strictly on kindle is that I am unable to read the back cover of books so I really do go into books partially clueless. The book did not manage to grip me as much as I thought it would. Getting through the story was actually quite challenging for me. I think it could be that when the scene is set as “perfect little community versus rogue mother and daughter duo who don’t follow the rules” my mind already starts to construct it’s own story and 80% of the time I am spot on about what will happen and this is exactly what happened with this book give or take a few twits. I expected them to face the challenges they faced, I expected them to fall for the people they fell for and I expected them to act in a way they acted.

For me finishing the book became more about confirming my expectations as opposed to savouring and enjoying the actual story. The book is however written quite well. I cannot fault Ceelste’s writing at all. The story itself is told wonderfully and under any circumstances I would have been more than happy to give it five stars on good reads. I think I was at the point in my fiction reading wherein I wanted a bit more thrill or maybe characters who do the unexpected, which is what I have been reading a lot of lately.

I do think though that the book is worth the read. It is generally a good enough entertaining read and it definitely felt like I was watching a series while reading it and I can totally see what the fuss was about it in 2017. The book might not thrill you, but Celeste Ng is a gifted writer who does some wonderful things in telling a story that feels like it is as old as time itself.

Thanks for reading this review, please let me know whether you have read the book and whether you agree or disagree.

Until next time, remember to be kinder than you think is necessary.

lifestyle, Self care, Uncategorized, Writing

Connecting.

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I’ve been looking for ways to stay connected with people I love and people with whom I’d like better friendships with. It’s been interesting because I am also doing this while simultaneously trying to cut back on my social media use and there are people who I can only access through social media. It’s so interesting how handles have officially replaced phone numbers and business cards and whatever else came before then.

So here I am, 30 years old. A millennial who has actually relied heavily on social media to connect and nurture friendships deciding that I need a break, I need to walk away and I need to start asking people for their phone numbers or the direction in which I should send a smoke signal or whatever way people used to communicate before handles and hashtags.

I used to think that my introversion meant that I could be alone all the time and I’d be happy and whilst I do enjoy my own company, growing has taught me that I do indeed, not only want but also crave human connections and that some connections matter more to me than others do.

So I’ve decided to minimize the light connections. The connections that leave me thirstier and wanting more. I want deep connections that will fill my bucket to the brim and still leave some water for me to dip my feet into.

I am not quite sure whether this break is providing me with that. All I know is I crave more, I want more and I deserve more. Whether the more is a deeper connections with those I already have and love or whether the more is an opening for new blooms to creep in and plant themselves in my heart I am not quite sure yet. All I am certain of is my desire to connect and to connect in a meaningful and nourishing way.