In life things change all the time, they can change for the worse but also they can change for the better. Yin Yang. Chaos theory. Harmony. Luckily the words your reading will not be harmonious, I will leave that to the birds and the whales, but as this short word string is about illness, the mind and the end of a project the best thing I can say is that human balance is almost always a reaction to the ground, and that ground is often uneven, believe it or not the mind is exactly the same. stevesevilempire came into existence as I was recovering from a serious neurological problem, it was created at a time when I wasn’t at points even sure of who I actually was. You don’t need the details and also I survived all of it and recovered, although that recovery took a decade I am now fine, I am myself. So just in case you were expecting an insight into brains, trauma and cognitive distress, you can relax and also pull the cucumber of concern out of your ass, as I am not going in that direction with these two paragraphs. In short at a point when I really needed to produce and create but could not fully engage as Steve, I somehow managed to pull off a quite advanced trick of the light because I really needed to dissociate from my real time situation. Hence stevesevilempire became a platform that actually helped me recover and also became a recognised ID for my photography. My best guess here is that people see what they want to see and from anyone else’s perspective, as long as I kept my mouth shut it all worked. It may all sound funny but people I still love, got caught in the epicentre of all this, so any humour should not be mistaken for disrespect, of anyone but myself at that time.

So, here’s the rub.

stevesevilempire is over, because I don’t need to dissociate any more and would like my own name back. It’s time to dissociate from my dissociation. It’s completed, it has been for ages now, I am myself, and have a fresh Steve Merrick publication coming next year. Every word written in stevesevilempire has played a dual role of making a point and helping me climb one of the highest mountains of the mind that I have ever encountered. So after a very long journey with it I have planted my flag at the top of myself and no longer need this, and haven’t for several years. The only reason I can think of returning to stevesevilempire is to publish it all alongside one of those biographical how to books, and believe me when I say, I do not want to do that. So these are words of farewell, I am not deleting it or anything but if you reread any of it using the perspective I have just given you, you may find an unexpected gift in it. I am kind of proud of it as it was initially produced under extreme circumstances but those circumstances are far far away now. Losing cognition is appalling and pathetic but regaining it is crazy beautiful. Since it is impossible to have an online bar, computers are good but you cannot suck a beer out of them as yet, I will end stevesevilempire with an old photo fest, considering how out of my mind I was at points taking them, it’s also kind of crazy beautiful too.

Thanks for putting up with me folks.

Steve