Elements

Appreciation

It first began as a blog, a virtual space where I could appreciate myself. A medium where I could wander and imagine, escape and get lost in my own energy, spirit, and soul. I specified it’s purpose as ‘me sharing what life, but more specifically, the people and places I encounter, mean to me’.

I just wanted to feel free, to not have to inhibit + constrain myself. To no longer feel numb and desolate, like I was decaying in the dirt, in limbo like landfill. When I feel truly alive, I speak from the heart openly + freely, don’t conform to convention or knuckle under the norm. But have often struggled for people + places that enable me to do this in full flow, that accept and embrace me for who I really am.

Yet writing has always been an omnipotent outlet to express every colour and note of my existence. I don’t need anyone else, only my mind + heart, my fingers, a tool and a palette. This won’t ever stop, only evolve, as long as I draw breath.

I have continued to write sporadically here for many years, but in recent months the frequency has spiked. I like to discuss, analyse, evaluate, and synthesise moments, events, practices, experiences, emotions, and more.

Elements

My articles thus have themes, or what I like to refer to as ‘elements’. Call them key notions, concepts, cornerstones, feelings, practices, principles, values, whatever. In essence they capture what I most appreciate about myself, people and places:

1. #TRAVEL – ‘the element of discovery’: exploring + experiencing people + places
2. #GUSH – ‘the element of gratitude’: effusive adulation, in the moment
3. #FREESCENES – ‘the element of place’: spaces of intense feeling + sensation
4. #REFLECTIONS – ‘the spiritual element’: dealing with feeling + giving it meaning
5. #BEAUTIFULPEOPLE – ‘the human element’: embrace + exchange one another
6. #VOCATION – ‘the element of visions’:

To learn more about each element simply click on the title, which will take you to a page with more information and a list of articles featuring this theme. Each element is also listed in the header menu of this website.

#drBACKPACKsGUSH

I not only want people to understand my notion of #GUSH, but I also want them to feel inspired to have #GUSH in their lives. Whether I achieve this or not, I intend to share my experiences of #GUSH, such as that of the featured image of this series introduction where me and my brother ninJA reached the summit of Lugnaquilla in the Wicklow Mountains, Ireland. It was a wild moment on a rapturous adventure! Just #GUSH.

I thereby look forward to sharing my #FREESCENCES with you all throughout this series, and discovering many more. But I won’t go seeking and chasing them, but instead allow them to be revealed to me when encountering and interacting with people and places. That’s the art of stumbling upon and discovering, it’s the art of creating #FREESCENCES in your life.

By detailing my notion of #REFLECTIONS in this introduction, I have also conveyed the wider ethos and rationale of my blog in greater detail. #drBACKPACKsREFLECTIONS will encompass this ethos, but don’t worry, my #REFLECTIONS in this series won’t always be abstract, esoteric, arcane, as I will always try to keep my articles rooted in specific experiences and examples 😊 In the meantime, go reflect!

#drBACKPACKsBEAUTIFULPEOPLE is thus a blog series about the #BEAUTIFULPEOPLE in my life of endless encounters and interactions. I strive to always see the colours and contours in the people and places I experience. But let’s face it, it’s rare where you encounter that synergy and compatibility, where you feel like you can reflect, embrace, relate to and exchange with the phenomena you encounter. However, those moments and encounters when you do experience that chemistry are worth living for, and I want to appreciate those moments and encounters. Much of my blog is dedicated to places, so I had to create space for #BEAUTIFULPEOPLE.