Music For Thought

MUSIC FOR THOUGHT

Dear readers, it gives me immense, overwhelming, ecstatic pleasure to inform you that I thought this post, this little post right here, was my 300th post on Moustashie, but I've just realised after writing and publishing this post that it isn't! We're getting on 300, but not there just yet! But anyhow, in celebration of that milestone-not-really-a-milestone-yet, I wrote this post about the story behind Moustashie for you lovely, dear readers to read. And because I'm feeling all happy and proud anyway, I decided to keep it, so I hope you enjoy it and please forgive my poor addition skills. It's probably a good thing I didn't take A Level Maths.

So when I started this blog in July 2014, it was my fifth or sixth attempt at creating and writing a blog, having tried numerous times previously. Every single time I tried, I'd get so caught up in the excitement and possibility and fun of starting a new blog, choosing the subject matter, designing the layout, getting ready to use my new voice to express something important to me. Yet the inevitable always happened. I'd lose interest, I'd give up, I lost inspiration, motivation, determination. I'd allocated my five minutes of attention and now it had ran out. Time to move on and set my sights elsewhere. It happened again and again and again, until in July 2014 I thought to myself 'hmmmm, I just have so many different things that inspire me, that I want to share with the world, that I want to talk about, and nowhere to do it, and that's really starting to bug me. I need to do something about it.' So I logged onto Blogger, created a new blog, decided to resist the creative splurge inside me and conversely opt for a simply design, I played around with names for a while until I came up with Moustashie (it's linked to my nickname Tash!), and then came the all important part: what would I write about?

Whenever I'd created blogs before, I either always restricted myself to one subject matter, or I always expressed myself in a way that felt immature, lacking, not good enough. I never said everything I wanted to say, I didn't know what inspired me or how to translate inspiration into content, and I suspect I was still finding my voice and more importantly, finding myself. Starting Moustashie coincided with a point in my life where everything was starting to change. I was coming into my own, becoming more aware of who I was, what inspired me, what was important to me, becoming a better version of myself. I was about to move to Manchester, I started university, did lots of new things, pursued lots of new experiences, broke out of my comfort zone. So much was going on, and I wanted to share everything, mark it down, remember it all. No restrictions. No boundaries. No limits. When I wrote, I wanted to write with freedom. Take my inspirations and ideas, whatever they may be, and follow them, pursue them, translate them into posts. Follow my heart, my mind, what was important to me that day, that week, and write it down. My content could be creative, crazy, eclectic, diverse, beautiful, honest, whatever it wanted to be. My writing would be flowing, energetic, rich, expressive, poetic, and the words would take care of themselves. I would merely externalise them. My only condition with Moustashie was that it had to be presented in a set way every time, to instil continuity, an air of professionalism, integrity, and I had to try and post 2-3 times a week. Aside from that, my horizon was big, blue, beautiful, as Florence & The Machine would say.

In the early days of Moustashie, I was sceptical as to how long it would last. I was waiting for my attention span to fizzle up and splutter into extinction, as per usual. But the strange thing is, that never seemed to happen. Granted at times I wondered where my next source of inspiration would come from, or I worried I wouldn't be able to keep it up, but the irony is whilst I was worrying about those things, I was actively doing just the thing to make sure that wouldn't happen. I'd look harder for inspiration, taking in as much of the world as I could, and I often find inspiration in the most unlikeliest of places. I started to absorb everything and anything that was important to me, that struck me in some way, that meant something to me. I began to think about things more, consider lessons I'd learned, wisdom I'd gained, what had changed in my world, see things I never used to see, take note. I began to document, write things down, take endless streams of photographs, educate myself, read more, listen to music more, draw more, watch more. Anything and everything. This was my place to express myself, use my voice, share with others what I love myself, after all. And I tried to discipline myself by making sure I kept up with my posting and writing but likewise not being hard on myself if life got in the way. It didn't seem so hard when it was things I was genuinely interested in, passionate about, wanted to share. I started to really enjoy blogging, and for the first time I began to branch out and share my posts on social media, go to blogger meetups, joined the Blog Society at uni and then went on to join the committee. 

The number of things this blog has taught me, the ways in which has changed me, are immense. I can't even begin to stress to you how important Moustashie is to me and how it has changed my life. I may only have 100 or so followers, I may only have less than 50 views per post except the odd few that have exceeded that, I almost never work with companies or do advertising and promotional work, I don't go to blogger events, I only recently learnt how to make my blog appear on the first page of Google, I'm sometimes more honest and open than I should be when I write, my content refuses to be defined and categorised into one box, I occasionally get the odd comment, and it took me a year and a half to get 20,000 views. And yet, none of that bothers me in the slightest. I don't do blogging for any of those things. I have no idea who reads this blog, or keeps reading it, but I'm incredibly grateful for every single view I get, every single person who takes the time to look at this blog and see what I've decided to ramble about next, every single follower, every milestone I reach. For me, this is my creative outlet, my voice, my means of expression, my little cornerstone of the internet, my way to reach out and share things I love with you dear readers, a timeline of my life and all the things I've done, have inspired me, have meant something to me. This blog was a challenge to myself, and it's taught me a lot about myself and what I'm capable of, as well as reveal skills and abilities I never knew I had. This blog is a journey, it's a journey of my life and my evolution, and I think that's rather bloody marvellous.

So to celebrate this almost-but-not-quite 300th post, and as a heads up to the future and what's to come, for who knows where this blog will go next or what it could lead to, I would love to share with you one of my biggest passions: music. I've curated a little playlist below full of beautiful classics right through to the current, fresh, cream of the new music crop. It's a mismatch of genres, it doesn't make any sense at all, but I love it all, it's what I can't get enough of right now, and I hope you find some little gems hidden away in there to enjoy for yourself too.

And again, thank you so much for your support! Much love :)

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-YOU'VE GOT THE MUSIC IN YOU-

ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS

DAVID BOWIE

CHANGES

DAVID BOWIE

LET'S DANCE

DAVID BOWIE

BAD HABITS

THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS

THIS IS THE ONE

THE STONE ROSES

ALREADY GONE
THE EAGLES

ONE OF THESE NIGHTS
THE EAGLES

YOU BELONG TO ME

BRYAN ADAMS

BRAND NEW DAY
BRYAN ADAMS

LET IT HAPPEN
TAME IMPALA

CACTUS TREE

JONI MITCHELL

BOTH SIDES NOW
JONI MITCHELL

TO ME YOU ARE EVERYTHING

THE REAL THING

AIN'T TOO COOL
LUNCH MONEY LEWIS

A LO CUBANO
ORISHAS

CANDELA
BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB

GIVE ME ONE REASON
TRACY CHAPMAN

CHARLEMAGNE
BLOSSOMS

THE SOUND

THE 1975

COLD IN OHIO
JAMIE LAWSON

UNDER THE SUN
DIIV

THE WORLD IS WAITING

THE CROOKES