fashionRIP: Choices, really?

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Choices, really?

"The idea of 'choice' is what drives us to export all the risk, disorder and poverty out of the gated community of the West and into other parts of the world, so that we can enjoy shopping. We live in a fantasy culture, a culture of comfort. We must always have choice, even if someone else has to pay for it, even if it's not really real. We're so obsessed with this that it's an article of faith with us that 'you can be anything you want to be.' This is essentially a politics of masturbation." -- M. John Harrison

I tripped over this while trying to to get down to homework. Immediately the conversation about "choices" at Revolution Books yesterday, took the stage. We discussed how in the vast array of similar products, services and skills, there is just a small boring range of all the possibilities. Limited by profit margin speak, we have become entrenched and almost buried in stuff. This is one of those weird juxtapositions that beleaguer our culture.

When i walked in i was recognized from my sustainable fashion lecture on Youtube (sweet ) that ended with the stenciled "Capitalism is Boring." Better, the same day the women of Revolution B watched the video, a young man had come into the shop and said "Capitalism is boring." Love this!!

Law of attraction or a vibration in universe that just starts humming? Paying attention to this magick is fun and rewarding. It returns that sense of wonder and joy that dropped off somewhere after becoming a "grown up." Hallelujah, it was only a plateau, one can recover.

Next surprise, a fundraiser dinner and a movie on November 10th for the bookstore. The movie: Banksy's "Exit Through the Gift Shop" yes!! Every time i stand up in a group wrapped in head to toe, protective denial, i tell them i am bringing an elephant into the room (in my head i see the Banksy elephant (graffiti-ed with non toxic face paint) It gives me grins and courage.

See you at the movies!

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Why it Matters

What's the matter with more and more fashion choices?

It sounds good; we love to be able to pick the perfect outfit. You wear it once or twice and then ....what was the real cost here?

Your time to shop and the money spent, not so much ....go a little deeper and consider the fiber source, the dyes and chemicals used, the health toll on the workers, the energy to run the machines, the transporting carbons...and now it just takes up closet space. But so what? It's been going on for-almost-ever and you didn't make the rules.

In fact we are told this is what a "healthy" economy looks like.

You will recycle it after all, give it to charity or your sister. This is more transportation and more release of those greenhouse gases. We are using a lot of our personal energy and the resources of this planet to make, use and dump "trash" Some rags, remnants and tawdry bits will molder for eons in landfills, as nature's microbial actions are hampered by our normalized, everyday toxic lifestyles.

This goes beyond dumps as the breakdown cycle that nourishes the life of this planet has been sorely challenged by GMO crops, fertilizers, pesticides, antimicrobials..RIGHT!!. All the "living better through chemistry" propaganda after WWI and II- AKA how to sell your "garbage," is our legacy. Well no more, not on my (our) watch, we are seeing things quite differently.

As we now carry 298 toxins in our bods that weren't there in the 1930s the toxic residues of normal are haunting us more and more. Ironic, no? Advanced is merely a word.

Go to the So Whats the Point blog in February for the numbers.

fashionRIP posts are copr at time of posting thank you

Extinctions ...So What?

Life evolves, some species survive some don't. We like to allude to Darwin's "natural selection" or Herbert Spencer's "survival of the fittest" because we are so good at reproducing and taking over this planet and justifying that side of our natures. The fact that we are wiping out the food chain by destroying habitat, fouling air and water and generally behaving like arrogant, tinkering idiots, is called business as usual. .....Well I and others are no longer buying that "sell."

We are wising up to the idea that we too, are dependent on these resources. We too, are physically an organic species and we really don't know what little extinction will be the start of the chain reaction that collapses the structure that we too, are dependent on.

Is this the price we are willing to pay for a pair of plastic shoes?

I say no, that despite the focus on the physical, we are more. We are heart and soul, mind, body, spirit. We are born of stars and we can and will leap over this world view based in old, untrue beliefs led by a science of isolation and religions of patriarchal, hierarchical constructs (your basic dominating Dad- with self reflective rights to rule). It is time to come together and heal. To transition into our fuller expectations and open the new possibilities. We are born with genius...let us help each other get to where we all can shine.