Hello, hi, salutations, greetings, to whom it may concern.
Now all the formalities are out the way, I can get started and just jump in with this.
As you may (or not may not, depends who's reading this I guess), I've recently decided to change the shift of Contendunt, from being a parkour streetwear brand, to being a parkour streetwear brand but campaigning for better mental health conversation, not just within the sport, but in our community as whole.
I started this year horribly. And when I say horribly, imagine you're falling down a pit but you scream and no one can hear you, and you think it's not so bad because you'll think the end will come soon and you'll be able to land on the soft bed of sand, but that bed of sand slowly and slowly gets further away. Or, if your mind is inclined to think this way, imagine the throne from Game of Thrones... now not only are you scared of how much you're falling, but you know when you land it is going to be painful as hell, holding injuries that are going to last a long ass time.
Notice some of the words highlighted in bold in that paragraph. For the clever clogs out there, you will notice that those words that are in bold make a lovely little sentence.
"You're falling down, but the end will come soon."
I will be the first to admit, starting this year, I literally thought there would be no way out of this horrifically described pit that I found myself in. But, I somehow managed to do it.
I am nowhere near perfect, or healed, or enlightened, or whatever term you want to use for your belief/views etc. As a human, I still have much more to learn, & a lot of weak points to work on. I am also not a medical professional. As cool as that would be, my time chasing a career within parkour left me with very little money, so affording such qualification isn't really an option (Maybe one day, who knows what road or path I'll go down, but for now, it's writing this).
So, let this be a casual introduction, and allow me to tell you what this is about.
My name is Callun, I am the "founder" (fucking horrible term) of this little brand/business and I am incredibly passionate about promoting the mental health, wellbeing and self-help and growth.
I am just going to come out and say it. Millennials (1981-1996), Generation Z (1997-2012) & Generation Alpha (Early 2010s - Now) are fucking useless at talking about our feelings. We are also incredibly influenced by these small screens connected to a case that's in our hands (If you're reading this post on one of these, a phone, then please don't close just yet!)
We are also very easily manipulated, influenced, sold to & incredibly quick to place our trust in someone (whether for good or bad reasons).
These generations, more or less, are the first three to grow up in the internet age, yno, the thing that was considered a fad back when it was first conceptualised, but now is almost impossible to live and imagine our lives without it! From email, to video call, to social media, to your Gran clicking an add for "Hot Mature..." you get the idea... our lives are pretty much dominated by the use of the internet.
Good or bad, I'll let you decide. I am not going to make an argument to change your opinion to my way of thinking. But I think the internet is one contributing factor to a huge sense of anxiety and depression, particularly in these generational groups.
I am kind of going off topic a bit, and focusing on one area here, but I will save the rest of it for a future post. Basically, I've been working on myself a lot recently, read a lot of books, listened to hours worth of podcasts, watched hours worth of YouTube videos & documentaries to enhance my thinking and trying to establish a better life for myself, both on the internet and off it.
There will be harsh truths, and things to consider & like your Mum's chicken that she's left in the oven cooking for too long, it will be dry, hard & tough to swallow.
So if that scares you off, thanks for reading this post, but I think this blog, some of the YouTube content and if I ever get the time to (see, here's one of my flaws creeping back in, excuses!) on podcast won't be for you. I want to try and lay down some no bullshit, real facts & methods that will help you get on a path to better wellbeing, whether you're in sports, the fashion industry, using social media casually, or cannot get the energy to go down the pub on a Friday night to get the courage to talk to Jessica, the attractive blonde that you notice always likes your Instagram posts just after you like hers.... you get the idea.
I'm not going to solve your problems, heck, I struggle to solve my own half the time (why on earth do you think I'm going to solve yours?!) but I do want to equip some of the tools I have learnt to use in helping me combat my mental state for you to try out. They may work, they may not, everyone's different & I will try my best to provide something for anyone and everyone reading this.
So, that's the first one done... thanks for checking it out, and I'll be in touch on a weekly basis.