the space between words

I think this might be the longest I’ve ever gone without writing a blog post, and we all know that I am certainly not a beacon of regularity when it comes to such things… or anything for that matter.

My exile from the internet world has been paralleled by a general exile from most other things in my life. Back in October, having recently graduated from University, I quit my then government job and tried my hand at aimless wandering/traveling. I quickly came to realize that I wasn’t in the right mindset to undertake something like that by myself and I shortly found refuge back home. I spent a few disillusioned/depressed weeks on the couch playing my new playstation (the result of a depression-fuelled compulsive purchasing spree), eventually (partly) coming to my senses and getting a new apartment in Montreal’s St-Henri neighbourhood. Things since then have been neither good nor bad, though I can’t say I’ve been working on removing myself from whatever quarter-life crisis hole I dug myself into. I’d very much like to pull myself together, yet I’m quite aware that there exists no miracle cure for such things, just small steps. This is a small step.

Over the last few months I’ve isolated myself from a great deal of people and burnt an inordinate number of bridges. I’ve lost touch with many good friends and strained many of my most important relationships. I am difficult, inconsistent and often impenetrable. This is an admittedly limited attempt at opening up (as well as a chance to write more, and I certainly need to write more.)

I am still working a (semi-)miserable civil servant job, but I suppose the lax work environment will allow me to write on a more regular basis. I’m doing this until I come across something more suitable to my tastes and aspirations, as a journalism degree definitely DOES NOT guarantee a journalism job.

I’ll also try to update this page with a weekly picture, seeing as writing isn’t the only one of my hobbies that I’ve been neglecting on my path to mediocrity. I just picked up Tom Ang’s newish book Fundamentals of Photography last week, and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit. I would recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in photography. The book’s approach is particularly interesting in that it attempts to reconcile film and digital photography. It examines methods of blending both mediums for the most effective and artistic practice. The book’s layout is also particularly lovely.

I came across this Adbusters article today that I found fairly interesting. It expressed a lot of the observations I've come to make over the years about so-called 'hipster' culture, yet goes further to posit that "The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new. " The writer's primary argument centers around the assertion that 'hipster' is a counterculture stripped of its subversive element, devoid of radical agenda and therefore wholly unoriginal, self-indulgent and self-perpetuating. I'd argue that 'hipster' was never intended to be a counterculture, and that since its inception it has been merely one of the many subcultures jutting out from the mainstream consumer infrastructure. It operates and thrives on product. It is a peculiar permutation of the same consumerism that drives the upper middle-class; and what's more, it is wholly conscious of this reality. 'Hipster' is not borne from a reactionary spark, it does not operate against an established structure, it is merely a hyper-modern, youth targetting stem of mass-market culture that is actualized by its own sense of self-awareness. To label it a counterculture is to give it too much credit. 'Hipster' culture is not subversive and it never claimed to be. Really, I suppose a similar point is made in that article, but the writer's rhetoric is just jumbled and pointless. Its melodrama and overimportant rambling are actually characteristic of the subculture it attempts to lampoon. But I suppose that might be exactly the type of pretentious post-modern statement the writers at Adbusters are attempting to make. Whatever.

I guess I'm done here for now. Evenin'.