existential crisis…

Fact: I’m prone to existential crises, which is to say, every so often I am struck with overwhelming realizations concerning the nature of being that cause me to temporarily lose grip on the anatomy of my own reality. These “revelations” generally occur in one of two forms. Strangely enough, these forms represent ideas that are entirely at odds with one another, for either I’m consumed with the conviction that “a.” everything is meaning-full or conversely that “b.” everything is meaning-less.

a. every so often I catch my reflection upon some surface under a certain light and am struck dumb when in that fraction of a second I am completely bombarded with the nature of existing. The reality that I am completely in control of my own actions, that at any given moment I can choose to operate in any manner, that I am the master of my domain as it were. In these moments I think of my conscience as being this tiny entity hiding behind my eyes as if in some giant robot looking out at the world through my pupils and controlling my limbs as they see fit. The magnitude of the fact that I am a living, breathing creature, who has a life that looks a certain way and that I am in the midst of some grand journey completely overwhelms me. A anxiousness builds up in the pit of my stomach, my heart races, and for those few instances, I am truly terrified at the enormity of life. It’s as if I had but for a brief moment caught a glimpse of some non-graspable truth, one that a mortal mind is not meant to perceive. And for a time following I’m somewhat unsettled.

b. there is no rhyme or reason to the comings and goings of a crisis of this nature, at least none that I have been able to apprehend. There are certain times when I’m simply and unexpectedly punched in the gut with the question “why?” and this is something entirely more insidious than the former. In order to best communicate the fabric of this thought process, I shall here record a portion from my journal, something I wrote stream of thought, as I sat in a cafe becoming increasingly oppressed with a suspicion that there was no answer to my “why?”…

“I’m questioning my existence once again. As I wandered the length of Whyte Avenue and back again, I found myself asking that oh so familiar question: why? why am I here in Edmonton? what am I doing? what would I be doing in Peterborough? anything? nothing? Most likely I would be wandering up and down George Street. What do people do? They work. They get drunk. Repeat as desired. To what ends? I drink from an endless coffee cup, I read from an endless book, I log in endless hours. To what end? I invest in endless people. I try to satiate my endless self. I try to serve an endless God and that’s just it… endless. Here I am again, it’s like Fernie [where I had a similar crisis], my passions seem spent. I get to know another person, I distract myself for another hour, I earn another paycheque, I go somewhere new and for what? to earn some treasure in heaven? so I can live forever in luxury… eternity is so unappealing. I’m sorry God if that hurts your feelings. I do love you and I want to spend time with you but right now I feel like every time I’m o.k., I’v just succeeded at distracting myself effectively… and that’s it, I’m constantly in search of distraction. Does that mean distraction is “it”, is distraction the end? Is distraction the what for? And what is it I’m distracting myself from? from nothing? boredom? from just being… I hate that I’m constantly striving to fill my hours? that I have the weekend off and it becomes this huge burden… this endless what should I do?… how can I effectively use this opportunity for distraction? where can I go to do what I would do here? is it a thrill I’m looking for? meaning? I don’t know how people do it… survive without purpose. I mean, I feel I’ve been let in on the big secret, the higher purpose of being, and despite that I’m still asking WHY? I can’t imagine what it would be to lack that… and sure people find purpose where they will… but does it stand up?”

I wrote that one day while feeling entirely despondent and woke up the next feeling entirely fine, feeling that life does have a meaning, a purpose, that the purpose I have is legitimate and that life is wholly worth living. Such is the nature of existential crises, they come upon you in a flash and just as quickly they are gone.

So either you’re going to read this and think, “man, I’m glad somebody else thinks like that” or conversely “man, that Chris Jardin is a complete wacko.”

a difficult beauty…

In dwelling upon various works of art I find to be of a beautiful composition, I have recognized that a good many of them are ugly when considered under traditional definitions. I have always been intrigued with the idea of the ugly as beautiful. The philosopher Samuel Alexander once said “Ugliness as unattractive is an ingredient in aesthetic beauty, as the discords in music or the horrors of tragedy. When it becomes ugly as a kind of beauty it has been transmuted. Such ugliness is difficult beauty”
… this notion resonates with me. Your thoughts?

When face kisses pavement…

An explanation…
A week ago I was spending the morning with my illustrious companion, James Kirkland. We were riding bikes. This was a most excellent idea. Edmonton has little in the way of vegetation, but the vegetation it does possess is generally contained within the river valley that runs through town. The river valley is probably one of the more pleasant places to spend one’s leisure time. So as such, this is where we were headed. In approaching the river valley, one must descend a slope that would be considered quite steep by most accounts. So their we were, me on my bike, James on his, bombing it down a giant hill. The information I did not possess upon entering this decline was that the path we were taking was only halfway down this slope. So at the point when the path appeared James began to veer towards it, and his route happened to be in front of the path of my careening bicycle. I applied my brakes which have never worked as well I would like, and as such my decrease in speed did not come as rapidly as I would have liked. So there I was careening towards James on his bicycle at break neck speeds, until there was a collision….

Punk rock saved my life…

…it’s true.
Examine these images* for a moment…

That’s me about 5 or so years ago in my house on Argyle St. in Peterborough…

That’s Thom, my partner-in-crime, about 6 or so years ago… he also lived in the house on Argyle St…

Now a story…

1986…

The world received some heavy blows in 1986… the explosion of the Challenger, the disaster that was Chernobyl, the death of Tommy Douglas, the beginning of the Fox Network…. however, in the midst of the darkness present in that fateful year, there were a few glimmers of hope, some light combatting that darkness… a light that strongly resembled the birth of Christopher Charles Jardin and also… the release of a movie called Rad. If you have any sort of affinity for film and/or BMX biking and/or the 80s, please divert your attention to this, possibly the greatest fusion captured on film in all of history… that of BMX and Dance… here you have it… the beauty that is the “bicycle boogie”:

Watch this movie… you won’t regret it.

Of the innate vanity present in the possession of a blog…

So I’m sure we’re all quite aware of the reality that the internal workings of a blog are based upon a presumption I, like many others, possess. The presumption I speak of is the belief that what I have to say, the ideas I have to put forth, my interests and the actions I take in thought and deed on a daily basis are in some way worthy of general interest. Having now acknowledged that, I am going to embrace that vanity and over the next couple of months, during which time I will not be actively engaged in the subject of adventuring, I shall devote this blog to various subjects and objects I find to be of note and that I can only presume you will find to be worthy of your consideration…

Subject A:

Caravaggio is one of my favourite artists… I find his images to possess quite the striking realism that really tend to hit me on a guttural level. I think it has something to do with the way he uses lighting and shadow that give his work this sort of compelling stark intensity… but this is the part where my ability to pinpoint the nature of what I appreciate about his art fails… I lack the language of an art critic…I know right… perhaps you fine art majors out there can fill in the blanks for me… anyhow, check out some of his work, he captures scenes in a way that I’ve never encountered in another artist…

it is what it is…

gnomenclature…

As a side note, I went to the Edmonton Farmers Market last saturday whereupon I guessed the weight of a large pumpkin… as it turns out, I’m good at this… win.

riddle…

Q: What do you get when you combine french new wave and canadian electro-pop?

A:




Jean-Luc Godard… the Junior Boys… I like both of these things… sometimes together.
Also, evidently, I have figured out how to embed video onto this video blog… how nice.

tour.

…if your astute… or even if you aren’t… you’ll notice the jump cut. This is because I, still being somewhat new to the world of talking on the internet, realized in hindsight that you’re not supposed to talk about details of work… and recognizing that fact… some things were cut. However, Public Outreach for those of you who are unfamiliar is an organization that canvasses for various non- profit organizations… I believe this will be rad.

(update) – It’s official… I got two jobs.