When life won't let you take a break.

(Unrelated to the topic at hand:For the first time in a while I forgot to take a shoe photo! I hate it when this happens :( Oh well, it happens) 

I want to talk about burn out today, specifically when you have to work through burn out. Unfortunately it's pertinent to my mental state at the moment, and has been on and off for many years.

To me, burn out feels like molasses. It's an all encompassing feeling, which makes me physically and mentally feel slow and gluggy. The pit of anxiety and overwhelm likes to rear it's ugly head and I also tend to become withdrawn, irritable, and flitter between too much and too little sleep. For those who have experienced burnout before, this may sound really familiar (that being said, your feelings may be different) and for those of you who haven't experienged it, consider yourself lucky ! :) 

If I worked a normal job, to cure these feelings I would take a few days off to destress, cut down on my commitments and focus on doing things I enjoy. This becomes twisted when big parts of your job fit into "this makes me feel good and helps me to destress". For example, I find the pre gig responsibilities and post gig aftermath pretty stressful sometimes, but the act of playing a good gig takes away the bad feels like nothing else. I also rely on the gig for income, further complicating the situation. 

More often than not, this leads me to working through my burnout. I know it's not healthy and that it probably keeps the sads around for longer, but the alternative for me (which is immediately cutting back on creative projects) is far more scary. 

There have been periods of burnout which have ended in spouts of depression where I've been unable to work work to even 50% capacity for (seemingly) endless months. It's almost like once I loose the momentum it's 200% harder to return to my fullest productive self. 

Over the last 2 years, I've experienced a couple of burnouts which I've worked (as in not slowed down my job worked) my way through. As such I've developed a couple of coping mechanisms. My favourites are:

1) The brain dump. This is basically a "to do list, but it also includes human things such as "take some time out" "don't forget to breath" and "you don't need to worry/panic". For these lists I also assign different tasks to different days so I don't feel like the full list in one days work. 

2) Talking to friends/making last minuite plans. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH how important friends are. I've recently reconnected with my closest buddies/found some amazing new friends after a really awful breakup earlier this year. Without these people to hang with, I would find myself staying in and wallowing much more frequently. (Saying this, once I return to "normal" I still seek out their friendship, it's just when I'm feeling crappy, I tend to not see anyone at all for weeks at a time and disappear off the face of the earth!) 

3) Making a conscious effort not to beat myself up about productivity. If you can remember back to this year, this has been my only New Years resolution, and I've been doing pretty well at it! One of my mantras has become "you can only get what you have done today, done today". Whenever I feel myself slipping into "work guilt" I say this, either in my head or outloud. While it doesn't immediately solve the issue, it does help to calm my brain and make the feelings less strong/easier to work through. Along the same vein, every time I do a thing that's not feel sad and watch youtube I give myself a proverbial pat on the back. Whatever I'm trying to do may be small and insignificant, but the fact I did it, feeling like this is an absolute miracle. 

4) I try to remember this feeling isn't forever. This helps to keep the burnout sads from becoming existential (which is a whole other layer of weird). 

I'd like to conclude with something positive, but it's hard for me to think positively when i'm stuck smack bang in the middle of burnout. Real talk: Every time I "recover" from burnout I tell myself "this is the last time" but it never is. I suppose I'm scared that this cyclical feeling will continue my whole life. I'm also scared that one day the feeling will just swallow my whole (woah, that got dark quickly). That being said, I see so many people who are older than me functioning like humans should. I'm sure they've all been through periods like this, and look at them! Mental health. It's certainly a thing. 

LASTLY! I'd like to call your attention to my mailing list! https://mailchi.mp/edf9944672b3/the-emerald-ruby-mailing-list-signup It's a thing I have now because I don't trust the algorithmic gods to deliver the stuff I make to the people who want to see it! I'll be starting it up once I get back from my July tour, so if you'd like better access to my online life, feel free to pop your email in the thing! :) 

On Being an Internet Introvert

I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before, but it must have been quite a while ago, and it's been on my mind lately, so I'm going to talk about it again (and hopefully not use any more run on sentences)

I naturally trend towards being an introvert. I like my alone time, and I can often find being social quite draining. (don't get me wrong, I enjoy being social, but it zaps my energy) 

This introversion also translates to my online persona. I consume a lot of content, but I find it exhausting to constantly share and comment (especially comment) on that content. 

In my quest to be able to live off my creative pursuits, I often find myself researching how to grow an audience. Every source gives this piece of advice "make sure you comment on other peoples websites/facebook/instagram/twitter" etc. 

This is a fine piece of advice, but like the real world, some people have an easier time being technologically extroverted. I am not one of these people.  

I often find I have very little to add to the conversation that hasn't already been said, or if I do have something to add, I don't have the energy to type it out, because it's long, and complex. 

Then there's the matter of keeping the conversation going if you happen to get yourself into one. The expectation is that you keep an eye out for the notification, then reply, and depending on the conversation medium, in a timely manner. 

I suppose there's no conclusion to this, apart from I need to make more of an effort to socialise in a digital space.

Some People think too much - Like Jim CarRey.

I know this because my thoughts often travel into the realm of existentialism, leading me down paths such as "what's the point" and "life has no meaning". I often try to combat this with the thought "one must create their own meaning" but that mindset is really difficult to maintain 100% of the time. 

The idea that one must create their own meaning is an interesting thought path for me to go down, mostly because it feels like a lie, like I'm trying to justify my existence in this world, and like I'm trying  to justify my constant exhaustion and relentless pursuit of various artistic endevours in the name of "success" (which for me can be defined as not having to have a day job.) 

It's hard to think yourself out of existential pointlessness. It drains everything you have. It feels like you're living a lie. And when things get dark, it's easy to fall down the spinning rabbit hole. 

It can also get a little lonely. Existential thinking is scary, and most people's pondering will never go there.  

A small part of me believes this is a form of ignorance, but conversely, the existential rabbit hole is a miserable place to go down. Once you break the glass, there's no going back. There's no returning to the safe bubble of conventional contentment. Sometimes I get glimmers, and they're glorious, but they never last long. 

My last group of thoughts (for the moment) on this matter play with the notion that the human race as a whole are not ready for mass existentialism. This though has recently been kindled by reactions to Jim Carrey's Fashion week interview (Link for the curious). This is the new hot gossip, "look at how bizarre he is" "He's gone mad" they say, but to me, he makes sense. 

Nothing matters, so we have to create our own meaning. We don't exist. We're just a bunch of labels and experiences we've assigned ourselves. And one of the most important takeaways, Icons/famous people/ those known by the masses are no more important than anyone else. Their existence doesn't mean any more than anyone else's, yet the human race assigns extra importance to these individuals.  

It saddens me that instead of thinking critically about Jim's interview, everyone is approaching it as crazy meaningless babble. But then again, I don't blame them. Once you start thinking this deeply there's no going back, and that's terrifying. 

Now for something a little less grim! I released another original song. You can check it out if you want to. It's about space and stuff :) 

Goodness, keeping track of footage is really really hard. I think I'm going to have to start writing down which bits I need, because I completely failed at it this time around. Also, one day I'll have consistent and decent lighting. Lyrics down below. (If you want the chords send me a message!

I'm still getting my head around footage management and mixing. It's not perfect, but it's better than the last video, which is what I'm going for.