Introduction

Part of my reason for starting this blog was the realisation that all the time that I used to spend writing zines, I now spend on social networking sites. Instead of creating something personal and lasting, I was consuming the impersonal, ephemeral offerings of my hundred odd 'friends', which ultimately left me hungry, and insecure that everyone else was having more fun than me. I'm theoretically more connected to everyone I've ever met than ever before, but somehow I'm lonelier than I have ever been, and I think the two are connected.

A blog seemed a good middle ground between social networking sites and zines. A halfway point for me to rest at before I complete the journey back to where I began, whilst still keeping the instant gratification of the internet I have grown so fond of.

After I had named this blog, I realised the title could be read in two ways:

1. The first, and intended, reading was that of trying to figure out what remains when all the other things have been taken away. Looking for the things that remain constant when it feels like everything is changing, trying to pin down what is left behind when everything else has gone:

All that's left behind = All that remains, the things that are still here.

2. The second reading, which I saw later, is as a statement, an announcement, almost said with relief. It's close to the opposite of what I was initially trying to encapsulate:

All that's left behind = All of those things are behind me now. They have all gone.

When those two interpretations of the phrase are added together; all the things I have kept and all the things I have let go of, they make a whole.

"All That's Left Behind" is about everything that has been lost, but also everything that is still here.

(It's also a line from "Invisible Man" by the Breeders.)