jumper dweller

I've spoken about maximalism a little bit (okay, a lot. I'm a maximalist so it would be as such!) on this blog and it's something I wanted to address quickly on this calm Sunday evening. We are just about to have an Indian takeaway, so I'll make it snappy.  Minimalism can be very beneficial, but it's not the only option I'd struggled and strived to achieve some abstract goal I called minimalism: very few possessions, no attachment to physical objects but rather obsessed by a desire to move from place to place hassle-free because I own virtually nothing.  This, it has dawned on me, is not always helpful. Owning close-to-nothing won't necessarily make you happy, and admittedly this is a more extreme, idealised notion of minimalism, but all the same I want to argue that possessions can be incredibly powerful because it is opulence, rather than consumerism that we need to be our mindset.  Opulence is not excessive wealth or a product...

I feel like, for some strange reason, we millennials are drifting aimlessly somewhere in the ether. We are by no means directionless, far from it. We are instead surrounded by so. many. options. And yet none of them seem viable.  It's 1am, no, sorry 2am - an hour has passed since I gave up on sleep and began to jot down (also known as: scribble down manically before the ideas somehow escape me) a plan for the future.  Not so long ago it was considered 'normal' to have a five year plan: go to university, get a good job, find a partner, marry said partner, and have children, get old, die. That was most people's plans, or so it seemed. Of course, there were 'eccentrics' that deemed this linear life too straightforward, choosing to live in communes, off-grid and reliant on the land. Okay, I exaggerate the polarities of these two more-or-less untrue stereotypes, but I digress.  A game-plan for life was set out for us, as detailed above. But now, ...

Hi folks, it's been a while, eh? Sorry about that... The truth is that I've been tired, some may even say 'burnt out', and am just about coping with my current workload while juggling a whole bunch of projects I've been brewing up: taxidermist aspirations, an MA beginning imminently, reading, getting up at 5(ish)am and attempting to be kinder to myself. Some of them will, I'm sure, prove more successful than others, but hey-ho. In this post, I wanted to discuss something I've been thinking about recently: doing things purely for yourself and no one else. In all honesty, I struggle with this whole concept. I incessantly seek assurance in the opinions' of others because I don't trust my own mind to supply it for me. I think this is reasonably common in general, but is particularly so in those with mental health issues. It's strange to think that we can believe thoughts that distress us so furiously, but a single second of positive self-ta...

Bloody Hell, folks. It's been a while. A hot minute, some would say. Firstly, a sincere sorry for not writing on here for ages. It's been a crazy few months marked by illness, indecision (or the malevolent goblin of indecision, 'the duck of indecision' - I'll put a pic of him at the end) and inner turmoil and frustration. But tonight I felt inspired and wanted to write a little something about how I would go about constructing an identity when a) you don't feel like you really have one, and 2) there is a pull from society/peers/family to just be like everyone else (primarily so that you remain unproblematic and therefore fit seamlessly into the world we live in, its qualms unnoticed and its wonders ignored). So I have a couple of tips (can I really call them that? Let's say ideas) that might kickstart you (and me, goodness knows I need it!) into discovering more so who we are and who we want to be! Right, shall we get started? Have a kit-kat (ak...

My capsule wardrobe!  Minimalism is, to many people, an extremely attractive yet lofty ideal. Own as few things as possible, only those that serve you and are functional for you and beautiful to you. For me, it was a concept I valued but I considered it entirely impossible, in practical terms, to implement in my day to day life. Maybe some you feel the same? Weighed down by possessions (literally so when moving from place to place) and unable to separate you from your stuff . Consumerism has been bred into us.  So, I hear you ask: 1) how are you going to implement minimalist ideals and b) why are you even trying since you are most likely doomed to fail? 1) Live with as little as is comfortable for as long as is comfortable. Ultimately, although I did a big wardrobe declutter and discarded (aka gave to charity) all the fallen apples (aka the clothes I really didn't care about all that much), I haven't abandoned the majority of my clothing though it no lon...

A subtle dash of rainbow..? You hear exhibitionist and you think narcissist.  These two can correlate, but they're far from one in the same. An art exhibition is not a display of the artist's internalised narcissism, but rather a message to the world concerning something they believe to be important and worthy of note.  A portion of my clothing collection!  Fashion is the same for me. I have often spoken on this blog about why our style is our initial message to the world about who we are, but take that one step further: what if our style could represent more than that? What if it could demonstrate a series of beliefs or an ethos that we wish to embody? What if by people looking at us we were in fact sharing with them what we hold key to our personal ethics? It's possible, certainly.  I am, in this sense of the term, a low-key exhibitionist. I don't shout or scream or act outlandishly to encourage people to look. I don't even really wa...

For some unknown, or at the least semi-unknown reason, it is ridiculously difficult for me to be kind to myself. I'm sure many of you reading (if there are actually 'many' of you in the first place?) will be able to identify with that. In a culture where every single achievable thing is quantified and compared with everyone else's achievable things, it's unsurprisingly that we young whippersnappers struggle to admit that we have value and worth aside from what we create/our grades/our monetary assets. Everything is about consuming, growing and competing, and that is just not a culture that cultivates kindness.  Self care! It is a radical thing, these days, to treat yourself nicely. We preach self-care as gospel, but it's far from bubble baths (Lush being our treat of choice), painting nails and applying some oddly cooling face mask. Self-care is our weapon, our fortress against low self-esteem. Once we value ourselves as people, looking after ourse...