Recently, I was forced to slow down everywhere thanks to staying up talking to friends, and near-insomnia. The most obvious one was when I was listening to music – before I was medicated I was proud of listening to so much new music, and I was anxious if I didn’t get my backlog cleared, which in hindsight sounds stupid. As I drafted this, I listened to You Don’t Have a Clue by Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp, and I remembered why I loved it. I’m not really good at getting across why I like a thing (partly why I made this blog, to push myself), so bear with me here – the things I liked about the song was the melody, and the progressively interesting composition, starting with a beat and some arpeggiated pianos, bringing in atmosphere and strings towards the end of the song. It did seep into other things, but music was the core thing.

So, why did I feel like I needed to catch up? For me, I identified two causes. The first I want to talk about is the fear of being caught up to things outside of my control. The uncertainty around government strong-holding of the Internet with rushed laws meant to usher in the new wave of fascism, particularly in the United Kingdom, created this mentality inside me where I had to get things done quickly, before it was too late. I think that’s why I subconsciously wanted to dive into WordPress instead of meticulously evaluating every other option, as well, but there were other factors into play that resulted in me. The second is more what fuelled this mentality, but can still be labelled as a cause: ADHD. I have combined type ADHD, meaning I exhibit both inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms, and the urge to rush into things was fuelled strongly by my ADHD.

Thankfully, I am now medicated and while the urge isn’t fully gone, it’s manageable to the point I can suppress it and move on with things. Granted, if I actually went to bed at a reasonable time and/or had decent sleep the medication would probably be more effective, lol.

So, what now? Well, that backlog of music I have to listen to is pretty damn full. And that’s okay! It’s not like Apple Music is going to implode tomorrow. I’ve stopped to listen to music I’ve already evaluated, creating a stronger and healthier connection to the thing I love. My website is objectively slower than if I had used a static site generator, and you know what? That’s okay! I don’t mind things being slower, for the convenience. I check on my Mastodon timeline a bit more frequently now, appreciating the slower timeline at times when Bluesky is crashing out over something or other. And that’s okay! (Mastodon and the wider Fediverse has other problems, though…)

In a way, I’m actually glad I stayed up late for my friends. It had forced to slow down with things in my life, and that’s okay.