Last month, I went for the fourth year in a row to this electronic music festival in Taiwan. I have my history with music festivals, as they used to be part of a routine.
Living in Amsterdam made me think that every weekend was an opportunity to dance somewhere.
Any of those places are fun. They easily become familiar third spaces, with one caveat: sobriety is not common there.

We’re now a few years later, fully sober yet still want to dance.
I had a great crew to play around with, but this year turned out different from most festivals I attended before.

These festivals have music running all night long, kicking off at around 1pm to end closer to 7am.
Usually, the first night you’d arrive gets you so excited that you’d go sleepless immediately.
It would shift onto the second day to make you emerge mid-afternoon, and by sunset you’d be going for another round of no sleep again.

I used to do this. Now I can’t. Well, it’s not that I can’t, more that I don’t want to ?

Since going sober, my FOMO over not seeing certain artists or missing some moments of a party really died down.
I don’t care anymore for endless afterparties or for waiting until 3am for the headliner to come: If I have danced enough, I go home.
This applied again at the festival, where I was done done dancing by midnight usually. I’d happily went to bed at that time, feeling the faint bass rumble through the tent and leaving my intoxicated crew to figure out their night without me.

This raised some eyebrows and expected questions from the friends, but hey, they understood.
What this opened though was a slew of other activities for me to do when everyone was sleeping.

This festival was located on the most northern coast of Taiwan, about forty-five minutes outside of Taipei, and was surrounded by gorgeous beaches and trails.
Early morning I would then walk out of the festival and go for a little hike, breathe the fresh air (and the silence), as well as move my legs differently than side to side.

It felt great to get the day started this way. I honestly wish hiking was a standard festival activity, but alas.
By the time I’d be back at the camp, the crew was barely waking up and I was the asshole coming home with far too much energy while others suffered from the complications of their indulgence.

I’m feeling very good to have stuck with that.
The three days felt great. I slept enough and didn’t feel any slump after the festival.
I danced plenty and saw some really cool artists, I connected enough with friends while they were able to connect the best.
Most importantly, it felt like I did it my way.

This made me realize that I settled so much in the recent years while trying to figure out my posture while going out.
I settled by keeping habits I had before, by saying yes out without asking myself if I really wanted to.
I built a small stash of resentment towards myself for not being fully aligned with my desires. Today I understand more and more how not to add onto it, every win earning me some satisfaction that things are going in the right direction.