I will start by saying something very personal. When I was
a child, barely 3 or 4, I used to see my grandfather wearing the same clothes
to his chamber. He used to be a doctor in a rural part of Bengal and far away
from the urban showoffs. When he returned from his chamber, he used to wash his
clothes with his own hands and ironed them carefully so that it becomes fit to
wear the next day. On the contrary, my dad had some 250 Shirts and T Shirts and
many of those were typically high collared, as if coming straight out of Elvis
Presley's wardrobe. After my father died, we found it hard to find people who
would take those clothes as those were highly out of fashion by then. If I
start speaking for myself, then I have at least a thousand shirts and T shirts
cluttering all over my place. I can easily part with those but when the moment
of throwing them away arrives , it happens that I suddenly and certainly
realize that the color of the to be thrown away piece is rather uncommon and
the texture is really good and that this piece of cloth was gifted to me by
some departed soul and having much sentimental value which I did not realize in
the previous 10 years. Well, that is it. I am overstuffed. Why did I buy so
much and why did people gift so many? and why can I not get rid of them easily?
The Root Cause
Common people attach too much importance to the clothes
that they wear. It should be of a particular color, it should depend on the
event, the season, the complexion of the person wearing it and so many
parameters. Fashion is art and I am not denying it. But when this art becomes a
huge environmental burden then we must have to ask ourselves about the
legitimacy of our passion for this art. Even if I decide not to look at data,
the fact is that fast fashion is one of the biggest reasons for environmental
degradation and should be treated as a very serious agenda for sustainability.
The fashion industry is responding to the environmental crisis by bringing in
more circularity in their production process but is that enough? Circularity
can decrease the footprint by minor share only. What is more important for us
is to change our psychological attitude towards our clothing. We will see later
that clothing is just one example. We need to change our consumer psychology
altogether if we want to contribute to the sustainable movement.
The Market
Returning back to the question, that why I ended up having
too many clothes than what I need , I came face to face with some important
revelations. I bought these clothes not because I needed them but because it
gave me a kick. Similarly, people gifted me new and newer clothes because they
love me and it gave them the same kind of kick. There are 2 kinds of things
that we need in life. The first one is the one which is needed for basic
survival and the second one is also needed but that is to boost our ego. Our
ability to buy that stuff gives us a kick. The problem is that the market
defines what is our basic need. For many of us, possessing a Gucci bag is a
bare necessity. Many of us believe that having a Porsche or an Audi is a basic
need of life. How can one imagine a life without expensive diamond gifts and a
vacation in Southern France? No problem, if you cannot afford it at this moment
but you can always dream to have them at a later point in time. Market defines
your dreams. Market tells you to work hard to realize your dreams. Popular
media, Disney movies and advertisement clips always poke you to dream big, not
because they care about you but because your dream means business to them. Your
hard work will fetch them money. The more productive you are, the faster are
the wheels of economic engine. More, more and more is what we need. Make no
mistakes, we need more, we need bigger and better. We need to show people that
I can afford and have the refined taste of admiring and appreciating the subtle
essence of the more expensive stuff. We are no longer humans, we are consumers.
There will be no humans left among us. There will only be consumers and
artificial intelligence to lure the consumers. We keep telling ourselves that
the Matrix is real, and it is for our good. The dilution of the boundary
between our true basic needs and market induced perceived needs is a good
strategy to fuel the engine of endless economic growth. The market does not
care that the world is finite, so an infinite growth trajectory is not feasible
within the boundary of this Planet.
" That's how it goes, everybody knows. " Leonard
Cohen
The problems with us
In spite of our wisdom, we still buy things irrelevant to
us. Buying satisfies our ego. It raises our serotonin levels and make us feel
happy for the moment. It is the addiction for buying that is the problem.
Self-absorbedness is a necessary condition for this addiction. The success of
Brand consumerism is primarily because of our self-absorbedness in our egos.
The intention of the market is to isolate yourself into your own ego walls.
This trend was realized even in 1979, when Roger Waters of Pink Floyd penned
down the following words, “All in all, you're just another brick in the
wall". In Bengali there is a great song by one great musical band which
says the following –
“They say that the
world is now
Contained in our palms!
Have you ever thought about it?
You and I are drifting lightyears apart !! " Mohiner Ghoraguli
( translated by me )
The fall of community and the rise of individualism has
completed our transformation from thinking humans to mindless consumers. The
age of the self has been also the age of global consumerism.
Technology
Technology also is driven by the market. Its single-minded
goal is to make people buy more. Buy stuffs, buy ideology and buy perception of
what makes you happy. It could have been used to solve the problems of society
but a mere look into the portfolio of products and services of Technology
companies make the idea very clear. They want to shape a consumer out of you.
Make no mistake, that is the sole intention.
" That's how it goes, everybody knows. "
Market offers convenience. Once it grows into a habit we
cannot live without what is more convenient. This is where we are
trapped.
Human vs Market
The other aspect is that we are defined by our material
possessions. As if , we are reduced only to our material wellbeing. This
reductionist approach enters our psyche and sickens us. Our self-worth is a
function of our humanity and cannot be equated with our material possessions.
It does not make us happy either. It is strange and diabolical that what we
perceive will bring us happiness, invites frustration and emptiness.
" The gold necklace does not fit me. loads of
pain to wear, lots of noise when I tear.
suffocates flow of my harmony ,choking my neck , I get distracted.
Hence, I sit here in this place, If ever I could give it to you
wear me a garland of flower instead.
So ashamed, I am , of my gold necklace. " Rabindranath Tagore ( vainly
translated by me ! )
The
profound thoughts expressed in these stanzas by Rabindranath Tagore remind us
of the nature of our true selves and its inherent disposition against the
material perspective of life. In easier words, buying more does not make us
happier. Rather it brings lot of frustration of mismatched expectations with it
that seeps into our mind and corrupts us beyond imagination.
When it
all gets resolved ?
Can we
ever break free from this? Can we ever separate our self-worth with our
material possessions? Can we define our perception of beauty without the need
of expensive clothes, jewelry, and synthetic make ups? Can we ever view a
person carrying a Nokia 305 many times wiser than the smartphone and dumb human
duo starting at each other in one corner of the road? Can we tell our children
that we care more only when we have less? Can we ever realize that
advertisements, celebrity fetishes, popular media, thought control and
perceived happiness are all weapons used against us and not for our good but
for our continuous enslavement? When will we realize that we are thought molded
to believe in one idea of beauty, one idea of happiness and one idea of
self-worth?
"How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind." Bob Dylan
Returning to the original topic of fast fashion, clothes do
not define us. I am not saying that people should stop buying clothes and
everyone in the fashion industry should starve to death. But we can buy in
moderation and separate our identity from our wearables so that our buying
pattern follows a more reasonable path.
“ Your clothes
conceal much of your beauty,
yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the
freedom of privacy you may find in them
a harness and a chain." Kahlil Gibran
Let us free ourselves from the clothes that drape our ego.
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