When I sign up for the challenge of wearing at least two self-made clothing items every day for a month, I'm usually a little worried about having enough to wear, but as the month progresses, my real problem sets in. I start to feel like a jerk.
Today's Question:
The blogging seamstress: Is she an agent of anti-consumerism, sustainability and self-empowerment, or a symbol of self-imposed irrelevant "challenges" that clog the blogsphere?
It's one thing to spend time making stuff and writing about it, but creating a self-imposed "challenge" of what clothes to wear starts to feel a bit silly when I look at the larger world. The people of Northeast Japan, for instance are living in a real challenge right now, one not of their choice, far outside their control, with real and shocking outcomes. And many have nothing left except the very clothes on their back as they live through it.
I like the idea of having new criteria when I get dressed in the morning, and I like the idea of trying to wear what I make and make what I will wear. But as the month goes on, the self-photography begins to feel self-indulgent and the documentation feels tiresome. My ability to have time to sew, a digital camera and computer to record my output and and internet access to spew the results all begin to feel privileged and their use ridiculous.
Then I reconsider. Sometimes it seems that the best resistance to unsustainability and despair is creation. Maybe as much as we need art and literature, we need hand-knit socks and a skirt we have sewn ourselves. I have thought about this a lot over the years and have never really come to a conclusion. (The closest I have come is in this essay which you can preview here.)
Do others suffer from these attacks of self-doubt? Or are you perhaps too busy actually getting something done ?
Is it possible that is a temporary side effect of Spring Forward into Daylights Savings Temporary Psychosis (SFDSTP)?
