Verdens bedste belønning..

…Hvad skal man med 12-taller og fine legater (jeg fik ingen af delene), når man har været med til at skabe tankestrømme og reflektioner af denne kaliber? Læs den 23-årige Wardrobe Challenge vinder Jenny’s seneste post på hendes blog Artkind (jeg tillader mig sgu lige at reposte den):


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This post will probably be pretty messy, but try following my thoughts as I think this is an important issue.

Ida who made the wardrobe challenge I participated in just wrote a piece on the project and it got published in a danish newspaper. It reminded me of something so true: wanting clothes and having a desire for new things is a psychological issue and it can not be solved with physical things. The fact that I want for example a designer bag, as I wrote about earlier, that is a psychological need. Which means that even if I get that bag I will still want something else. Because that is what we do, us, the consumers. We all probably know this, but for me, I started to question the whole purpose of my life/our lives. What are we all doing? We work so that we can survive, but that is not all, because we work more so that we can “built” our lives. We fill it with things: a house or apartment, educations, and we need stuff: a bed to sleep in, a kitchen to cook in, some clothes to put on our bodies so we don’t get cold. We could all stop here, but we don’t. We need more stuff. To built our image and to create our identities. But why are we doing this? Is it boredom? Have we made this our purpose in life so that we have something to do? Because what is it? Why do we need it? Is it what sets us apart from the neighbor? We have that great expensive couch, or even better we have a designer handbag that we can flash around town, then we don’t even have to invite people over to see how well we are doing. We buy these things so that people can see that we have success. We make a lot of money, we can afford this. But why do we need it? Why do I need to do it? It makes me sad. I would like to say “I don’t want to be a part of this.”, but how do you do that? Can you even do that? We are born into this society, and we are given these norms, and we don’t know any other way of living a life.

If you like me love aesthetics, and it is important to you, and it makes you happy being surrounded by beautiful things, what do you do? Is this a true emotion, or is it one that has been created in you, growing up in this society. There were aestheticians in ancient societies as well. Can this be my “excuse”? Because I am embarrassed, that I have these needs and desires. But also, spending all that money on what? It makes me sick. For example, having put aside a lot of money with the purpose of spending them on a bag, and if I was a “right” consumer, it should make me feel proud that I could do this and I would have earned it. But it just makes me mad at my self for wanting something so shallow, and the fact that I can’t even decide which bag to get makes me feel ridiculous. Because what is it really about? Why do I want to spend those money so bad? Because I want to feel “right”? Then why do I feel like something is wrong? Another thought pops up, if I don’t do this, if I don’t want to buy this, then what am I going to do? If we don’t have this? If we doesn’t want something, then something is wrong with us. Not having desires is actually a sign of depression.

Right now, in this moment, I feel like I don’t have anything else. I am a consumer, that is what I do. I love fashion, looking at it, analyzing, trends etc. I love architecture and photography. Beauty. I love planning. What should I get, where am I going, what would this signify if I got this. I love movies for the same purpose: they have to be beautiful, have interesting characters, and they should leave me with a desire. This is not something I am usually aware of but I have become. And I think that is why it is no longer satisfying for me to want these things or to buy them. When you know whats going on, and why you are doing what you are and feeling how you are, then thats not very fun anymore. Because you then feel pathetic.

But what can I do? What can any of us do? Sometimes I just want to sell everything I owe and just go! Travel until I don’t have anything left (Then what?) Or buy a farm far out in the country side and be self sufficient (And then still have the deeper desire to surround my self with aesthetically pleasing things?) But if I don’t work to be able to buy my self designer bags, or vacations, or eventually being able to buy a lovely farm in the country where I can stuff in designer furniture, if that doesn’t satisfy me anymore, then what am I working for, what can drive me?

I don’t know, but I think that what I am feeling is a common issue in this society? (And what makes me feel even more sick is the thought that right now somewhere some people are trying to figure out how they can make money of of it.)

Wow this can be said to be a real existential crisis. So to find a bigger purpose, that is basically what it is all about. But I already do yoga, only eat meat about once a week, buy quality, sustainable, organic products, try not to get too consumeristic (is that a word?) and still I am a consumer and a person who wants a designer handbag. We can only do so much. But we are always talking about what we can do for the planet, and society, but what can we do to fix ourself?


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Ehh… Skal nok sige til hvis jeg finder svaret.