Love People and Use Things
By: Marcia Fernandes
Tags: Sustainability, Empathy, Life, Consumerism, Human Behavior

Love People and Use Things

We need to see a bag as a bag. And we need to see a person as a person.

Since we engaged in mass production, we are coming down the hill.

We should discuss what we feel when, exiting the mall, we find a homeless person lying next to the door. Is there a feeling?

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Do we feel sorry for that person? Do we feel guilt?

Is there even an emotion?

What happens in our head when we see the homeless?

We were worried about those jeans that wouldn’t fit our ass. Or that beautiful blouse that wouldn’t fit our blouses-budget.

And then, there is a person outside with no place to go.

A person without a home.

So, I won’t start by pointing fingers. I don’t believe that guilt would be helpful right now.

I want to understand what happened inside the mall instead.

For what the actual reason, are we loving blouses?

I always had that feeling that I prefer to own original things, that feeling of expressing myself in a unique way.

BAD LUCK, MASS PRODUCTION WAS INVENTED BEFORE I WAS BORN.

I didn’t have all I wanted, but I had a good collection of clothing and accessoires.

I did try many haircuts, even bald (but that’s another tale).

I needed to use glasses since I was six, so you can imagine… orange&blue, black&green, round dark-purple, turtle pattern, Harry Potter style etc.

Consciously or subconsciously, I was struggling with the standardized society around me.

All.

The.

Same.

Not just the same clothes, but the same routine, same likes and dislikes and, worst, the same sadness.

That discrete sadness. They never look you in the eye and say they are sad.

People just complain a lot about superficial stuff, but never say a word upon the deepest anguish they feel. You know- the bad things, the real things.

So, coming back to what we own:

Photo by Author (yes, those are my socks)

DO THINGS THAT WE USE HELP US EXPRESS OURSELVES?

Are garments a camouflage, a defence, or even a weapon to protect us from the rowdy-busy-insane world?

Or… Are we buying things the same way we are drinking cows milk in the 21st century?

Photo by Artis Kančs on Unsplash

I mean… we are drinking it only because someone (who is making a fortune) invested weighty in the marketing (and probably pseudoscience) telling us that there isn’t such a healthy thing as drinking bovine formula.

Is someone investing in telling us to buy things in order to be successful?

– Yes. Every company. Almost everybody, including our mum.

Do we do what they say?

-Totally.

Do we enjoy it?

-Partially.

Do we understand that someone is making billions out of our consecutive consume?

-Hm… Yes… People need to make a living.

Do we know someone is being underpaid out of our cheap goods?

-Ah…

Do we know our cheap goods will last little?

Do we know they require the waste of finite natural resources?

Do we know they are polluting our environment?

-Yes, we know. At least, we have a glimpse.

And yet, I ask:

Do things that we use help us express ourselves?

Is it a defence from the rowdy-busy-insane world?

No and no.

I’m sorry.

I imagined you expected me to give us a little comfort about our… errors.

No.

I said guilt isn’t helpful right now but responsibility is.

How helpful!

Photo by Author

Returning to that precious moment when we leave the mall and find the homeless person laying on the street:

Is that feeling that we can’t explain the responsibility inside our head trying to free herself from the cage where we looked it in?

It lasts a second.

We manage to remember those too-skinny-jeans and our may-be-bovine-milk-fat ass, changing our minds’ attention from what we just saw.

Anyhow, I really believe that that feeling is responsibility.

Perhaps I should say irresponsibility -as you may know, it is the lack of responsibility.

RESPONSIBILITY CAN BE GATHERED WITH AMUSEMENT OR DISCONTENTMENT.

Let me guide you. Imagine someone saying this to you:

Photo by Eleanor Chen on Unsplash

(wise voice tone on)

“This plant is your responsibility now.

You are answerable for its life:

You are guilty if it dies, you are guilty if it lives.”

(normal tone again)

Now. Would you take this responsibility on with amusement or discontentment?

Yes, it could depend on being a plants-lover or not but away from that, away from this example:

HOW DO YOU TAKE RESPONSIBILITY?

Do you hold it in your hands or it is like a hot potato that you try to pass on?

Each day, we know more about the impact of our actions.

And even if we want to ignore the homeless person, we can’t, even if we pretend.

There is a part of us who feels responsible, somewhere.