Recipe for life

Today I am finally going to get to the doing things with your hands aspect of the quote I shared in yesterday's blog post. But, before I do, I have another quote to share with you.

"Toward a New Incompetence

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If advertising streamlined mass selling and relieved consumers of the anxieties of numerous trivial decisions, did it simultaneously, as its spokesmen claimed, help people surmount the new complexities of life? Did its 'advice' enhance the competence of the average consumer? Advertisers liked to describe their functions as one of education. Advertisements not only improved tastes; they made the consumer 'a more competent buyer.' Ads spoke of the modern woman buyer as 'Armed with new Knowledge -- sure of her new skill.' But, of what did the consumer's new skills consist? Were the shortcuts to decision-making offered by advertising a clear gain in competence in the face of complexity? Or did consumers merely increase their dependence on services and technological amenities they did not really comprehend?' (p. 349)

This excerpt is from Advertising the American Dream: making way for modernity 1920-1940 by Roland Marchand. I had to read it for a history of modern architecture class that I took at Northwestern as an undergrad and it had a huge impact on my thinking. Merely the fact that it is one of two books I have kept from my undergraduate studies tells you something. I can pinpoint my skepticism of advertising to this book. If you are interested in the phenomenon at all, I highly recommend it. 

As you can see from what I shared, this is the section which details how the newly developing business of advertising was purposefully moving consumers to a place of ignorance and incompetence. What began in the 1920's and 1930's has developed into a frighteningly huge and rather diabolical realm of business today. They've had one hundred years to practice their methods after all. The last thing any multinational corporation actually wants is an educated and discerning public. The wizard of advertising most definitely does not want the curtain pulled down.

And now we will rejoin the observation of yesterday, where I shared research which indicated that doing things with our hands... physical things such as cleaning or making food or handwork such as knitting or sewing or pottery or making music or woodworking... helps to create a sense of achievement which can contribute significantly to our sense of well-being and to help stave off depression. Here we come full circle. If we are in search of convenience to "save time", then we will purchase everything we need and hire out all the things we need to have done. Yet this isn't actually fulfilling, especially when the advertising is constantly telling us that we are missing out on some new thing that will actually be fulfilling or save us even more time. We buy or do this new thing in an endless search for fulfillment and happiness. And what do we do with all this time spent? Well, we watch more television or stream more content or doom scroll or whatever your mindless drug of choice is where we see yet more advertisements promising us something better and more time. All the while everyone bemoans how little time they have. It's actually more than a little insane when you write it all out. 

The antidote? Actually do the things yourself, even if it takes a lot of time. Because really, some of our modern conveniences really did save us a huge chunk of time. Anyone whose washing machine has broken suddenly understands in very tangible ways how much time one saves by not having to do laundry by hand. These sorts of inventions are truly time saving. The rest? I'm not so sure. 

Let's take clothing as an example. (You knew I would end up here, didn't you?) Clothing is cheap. You can buy great mounds of it. You can buy so much clothing without it ruining your budget that some you won't even wear, hence the thing of finding new with tags items at thrift stores. So. Much. Clothing. So much clothing is discarded that it is an actual biological disaster on the disposal end. Heck, it's a biological disaster on the producing end as well. We have too much clothing, yet stores such as Shein continue to produce great gobs of the stuff because they have honed their advertising to make people believe that there should be new clothing styles every few weeks and your life will be worth nothing if you do not wear these styles. It's that whole create dissatisfaction, provide the lure of satisfaction cycle. 

But what happens if a person makes their own clothing, or even just one of two pieces of their wardrobe? First, it's not fast. Depending on your level of expertise, it could take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. Making your own clothing is the complete opposite of fast fashion. Let's assume you like what you made for yourself. You will wear it a lot, both because it is unique, you like it, you spent time on it, and it never hurts when you get a compliment on it. This is not a piece of clothing you're going to throw out after wearing a couple of time, and assuming that you made it out of halfway decent fabric, it is also not going to disintegrate after a couple of washes. If it needs mending, you will probably take the time to do that. Really, you're just going to take care of it better because of the time you have put into it. If it eventually becomes significantly out of style, you might even think about reworking it to bring it more up to date. Or maybe you made a classic piece that doesn't actually go out of style. Your relationship with this item of clothing is significantly different than the cheap t-shirt you bought at the big box retailer. Think about a whole wardrobe of clothing you made for yourself. (We're just going to imagine that you have the skills to do this for sake of our argument.) You don't even need retailers then to provide you with clothing. You need fabric stores, but they are not subject to the same whims as the clothing end of things. (Joann's and their ridiculous focus of fleece aside. I have no doubt that fleece is why they ultimately failed.) Your wardrobe gives you sense of satisfaction because you created it. Suddenly you find that maybe you don't need quite so many clothes as you thought you once did. 

You could substitute just about anything that you can do with your hands to provide for your life into this scenario. It is the phenomenon of finding you need less because what you have means more. We were meant to physically relate to the world around us and to physically create much of that world ourselves. In the act of creating we usually need to combine with other people, either to learn skills, to help complete a task (think sewing bees or community gardens), or to barter with people who have skills you do not. Here is the recipe that the multi-nationals and their advertising flunkies don't want you to realize. We don't actually need all that much. If we join together we can usually make much of what we need ourselves. This combination of community and physical doing provides the basis for an emotionally healthy and fulfilling life.