Hello everyone, this is my new blog.

If you don't know, my name is Les, I do a lot of things and I try my best at it. You may have or may have not seen some things I have made or done before. It's an occasion, which I will touch on later.

I made a lot of this blog myself all on my own; from design to a lot a of coding, it's work of my own doing and I think that is cool. Apart from using Webflow to design most of the UI of my website, everything else is of my own work, including the text editor I am currently writing this from. I just wanted to share that; to explain to you that I feel proud so I could get that out of the way.

Words are hard, but I am going to try

I often have a lot of thoughts that I want to share, and I am constantly facing the dread of sharing on social media. This post wouldn't be the right place to discuss this topic, but social media isn't a great place to share some of my thoughts. Very rarely am I sharing the full scope of what goes on in my head which I think is a huge shame and a loss to the people I am surrounded by. I have made this blog to address that (issue). I want to share and be able to talk again, with the freedom and liberation I (used to) find in sharing, in exchanging information with people — one of the more simple things in life which I, and maybe many others, take for granted.

I find words hard to use. Something something non-verbal, something something ADHD, something something depression: they are hard. The battle I am faced with is, "How can I most accurately translate the nuance of human emotion and thought into something someone else will understand?". I am a stream of consciousness, but how is someone meant to dip into my stream and come out with more clarity than before?

It never used to be like this for me, I use to love using words but life experiences have caused my desire to speak down to drastically be reduced to a minimum. Some of my friends may disagree but I would like to see that as something different.

To bridge the gap in my struggle to concisely share my thoughts, I do a lot of creative things and I put some of those creative things out for people to view and have a small part in. If you know me as a visual artist, that's cool; if you know me as a DJ, that's also cool; if you know me as a photographer, that's also cool. If you also just know me for doing lots of other things, that's cool too. Thank you for letting me do my thing(s), it helps in connecting with people.

The internet is scary

It's a bit of a struggle to write this next bit but I'm going to try.

I've explored and pursued a good number of creative things, and over the last year having first started doing photography in and around Johannesburg; subsequently taking upon DJ'ing and having to mix in front of people, there is the inevitability that I'm going to have to be more intentional about how I make myself visible to people. However, it is uncomfortable to do so, especially with social media being a primary factor in my visibility.

Part of my difficulty in this new way of sharing is to find a balance between expressing myself outwardly and being comfortable enough not to compromise the protections which allow me to express myself the way I do.

There is most definitely a worry in myself that social media will be my only channel of communication and that could saturate connections down to "You're Les the photographer/DJ from Instagram". Speaking earnestly, I'm scared of hampering my chances at creating authentic relationships, whether that be creative, work or personal. I pride myself quite a lot at my ability to create beautiful and thriving relationships with people, even amidst adversity and I don't want social media to get in the way of that if I'm going to use to grow my "career", so to speak.

Influencer status is not what I want for myself, nor do I want "content creator" status because in simple words, that severely diminishes and undermines what I'm doing.

Ending posts the same way I end long voice notes, I hope this makes sense and I hope everything comes to fruition soon.