15 February, 2004

I read an excellent article yesterday (found via Punk Rock Academy) entitled One Suicide Too Many. Suicide is one of those things that hits me hard for some reason. It always feels so close to home, though I don’t know why. I have never known anyone close to me who has killed themselves and, apart from a couple of times in my life, I’ve never really seriously contemplated it myself. The article nails all the human issues of suicide and, while U.S. focused, remains fully relevant to New Zealanders.

An interesting thing has happened to me over the last few years, I have refound my creativity and experimental nature again. As a kid I was always writing, drawing and dreaming, was always described as imaginative and was often known to enhance reality to make it more interesting. And then I went to High School and was wrung through the study hard, get a job, buy a house, marry and have kids template. My creative writing stopped about 4th form (age 14), the subjects got more technical and by age 18 I was depressed. This was the time I went to Norway and started to make a break for it.

It has been about 8 years since I left University and it was really only last year that I started expanding and experimenting again. I now run my own Design company, make my own clothes, have learned to cook interesting food, have more hobbies than I know what to do with, am constantly meeting new people, think creatively and most importantly I try new things and challenge myself mentally and physically regularly. This should have fucking happened 12 years ago. Not once in my schooling was I told that it was easy to run a company, not once was I challenged to think for myself and not once was my creativity encouraged. I have nothing but loathing for that time now that I look back and see what it did and what it cost me.

On a much brighter note we saw Billy Connolly live last night which was excellent. I have been wanting to see one of his live shows for ages and now it’s done and was well worth it.