Tired

I have become so tired of skateboarding.

I spent a lot of years seeing what I could do to give back to skateboarding, and to give back to the scene that had given me years of good times. Skateboarding allowed me to travel in a way that I may not have otherwise, and meet a wide selection of people with various interests. I don’t count myself as a people person, but something about skateboarding and skateboarders clicked in a way that nothing else had or has since. 

It had such a profound effect on me that I met several important people in my life through it. Most importantly, I met my wife through skateboarding.

Skateboarding has given me far more than I can ever give back, and I have never asked for any compensation for my creative endeavours within it because for every video, or t-shirt, or sticker, or comp I work on I have received hours of good time and personal fulfilment in return. The act of skateboarding is payment enough.

With that said, I can’t help but go back to 2013… when something about skateboarding just didn’t feel right to me. I took a step back from filming, editing videos, and just being creative within skateboarding. I’ve been filming, involved with competitions, and making stickers and t-shirts again since then – but the passion is gone and I don’t think it’s coming back.

I don’t want to give back anymore. I am in it to skate, and to skate for myself, and not to boost others. You’ve all got instagram accounts, post your own shit online. I find myself identifying with guys like the Barrier Kult who just want to skate hidden away and not be identified.

When the shit has hit the fan for me in my life, riding a skateboard has made me feel better. However, interacting with other skateboarders who snake me or give me shit for utterly no reason has pushed me to the darkest places I’ve ever been mentally. Keyboard warriors who send me a fucking tidal wave of bullshit comments about my dumb backyard mini ramp that I near enough built all by myself (despite having no building knowledge) can get fucked. In a world where we are encouraged to share, I find myself wanting to share less and less. I don’t want the world to know me.

You can say I’m over-reacting, but shit is far more complicated than that and we never truly know what’s going on in someone’s mind. My whole outlook is to just be cool to people, and to celebrate positivity. But people make it so fucking difficult, and everyone wants to concentrate on the negative side of things.

What I wanted this blog to be was a feelgood place to get some local stoke and to be a reminder that we should all be cool to each other – because without skateboarding, and without each other, life would be so fucking boring. Something within me just feels like no one is getting that. There are little pockets of skateboarding that have that (and I try to stay within those as much as possible), but I am so bummed out about where skateboarding is in 2018. It fucking sucks. I have become that guy who says “It was better back in the day”.

Maybe The Terrible Company will come back proper. Maybe it won’t. At the minute I don’t really care. I’ll post pics and videos and shit but I’m not exactly sure why I’m doing it other than because it’s just what people do and I don’t know what else I would do.