Made
Tuesday 16 June 2015 LyricsBlog
Do you remember when people just used to have two pairs of clothes: their working clothes and their Sunday Best?
There were no massive January Sales, no Black Friday, no walk in closets. And there were no sweatshops in Bangladesh, the Philippines or Venezuela to make our $7 t-shirts.
No, I don’t remember either. I have grown up in a world where excess is not excessive, it is expected. When I was young, we were pretty hard up and I did wear hand-me-downs and had a handful of lovingly home made clothes. But those days are long behind me, and as soon as I had a job in high school, all my extra cash was spent in Topshop and River Island and H&M...
(playing at being “models” during high school...)
I’m thankful that our schools made us wear uniforms so I didn’t have to find something suitably fashionable to wear every day. Wearing the same thing twice in a row had basically become unacceptable. What had happened to the days of two pairs of clothes...?
Packing for four months in the USA lead me to bring a suitcase full of clothes with me. I thought through all the possible scenarios, situations that could possibly come upon us and chose clothes for them. And then, I thought, that’s way too much. So I cut the pile in half... And still, two months in to the trip, I have probably only worn 20% of them. The rest are sat, still neatly folded in my case, taking up space in the back of our car.
I have realised that I need less.
Now I know that this idea of minimal living is nothing new at all. I admire people who have cut all their possessions down - some to a number of pieces, some to a dollar value, some to a set volume like a suitcase or a smaller wardrobe.
But I’m not even at that point yet... I am realising that I do not need all of what I have. But I do not feel like I want to get rid of any of it yet! That will be an entirely different revelation and life direction, and I’m ashamed to say that I still feel a huge attachment to my possessions... perhaps because I do not have a home to put them in, so they become my home in a way...
However, I am seeing that there is no point in me buying new things when I don’t use all of what I have - I have no desire to add things to my suitcase. And I am not feeling ”embarrassed” to show up on stage wearing the same shirt or dress that is on my website or in my music video.
In Nashville, we went to a flea market full of beautifully crafted, locally made products from clothes to notebooks to coffee tables to cutting boards. Looking at the price tags, my first thoughts were “holy moly that’s expensive!”. But these are precisely the types of products that I hope to be able to buy in the future... pieces of functional art work that are made with the artist’s soul and don’t bring harm through their production...
I am reading “Loving Frank” by Nancy Horan (a gripping, heart wrenching read!), and in the process learning about the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright - the genius, eccentric Chicago based architect. One passage that I read today totally sums up this concept:
She looked at him skeptically. “So I shouldn’t worry about money.”
Frank sighed. “No, it always comes. It’s never been the reason I practice architecture. But money can buy beautiful things, and I need beautiful things around me. I’m an artist, Mame. You more than anyone should comprehend that. Beautiful objects stimulate me, they inspire me. Look at this.” He pointed to the delicate hand stitch on the lapels. “I don’t buy junk. When I buy something, it’s got to be perfection or I don’t want it,” he said. “You won’t find me coming home with five cheap suits, one for each day of the week. I’d rather have one perfect suit or none.”
But even if we can’t buy the “perfect suit”, whatever that may be, let us learn to be content with less. We all know, in our heads, that material things won’t make us happy. But in practice, we still seem to think that the grass is greener and that these substances can bring us happiness. Lets continue to lift our eyes above the factories and to the heavens, to where true peace, joy and love are to be found.
There were no massive January Sales, no Black Friday, no walk in closets. And there were no sweatshops in Bangladesh, the Philippines or Venezuela to make our $7 t-shirts.
No, I don’t remember either. I have grown up in a world where excess is not excessive, it is expected. When I was young, we were pretty hard up and I did wear hand-me-downs and had a handful of lovingly home made clothes. But those days are long behind me, and as soon as I had a job in high school, all my extra cash was spent in Topshop and River Island and H&M...
(playing at being “models” during high school...)
I’m thankful that our schools made us wear uniforms so I didn’t have to find something suitably fashionable to wear every day. Wearing the same thing twice in a row had basically become unacceptable. What had happened to the days of two pairs of clothes...?
Packing for four months in the USA lead me to bring a suitcase full of clothes with me. I thought through all the possible scenarios, situations that could possibly come upon us and chose clothes for them. And then, I thought, that’s way too much. So I cut the pile in half... And still, two months in to the trip, I have probably only worn 20% of them. The rest are sat, still neatly folded in my case, taking up space in the back of our car.
I have realised that I need less.
Now I know that this idea of minimal living is nothing new at all. I admire people who have cut all their possessions down - some to a number of pieces, some to a dollar value, some to a set volume like a suitcase or a smaller wardrobe.
But I’m not even at that point yet... I am realising that I do not need all of what I have. But I do not feel like I want to get rid of any of it yet! That will be an entirely different revelation and life direction, and I’m ashamed to say that I still feel a huge attachment to my possessions... perhaps because I do not have a home to put them in, so they become my home in a way...
However, I am seeing that there is no point in me buying new things when I don’t use all of what I have - I have no desire to add things to my suitcase. And I am not feeling ”embarrassed” to show up on stage wearing the same shirt or dress that is on my website or in my music video.
In Nashville, we went to a flea market full of beautifully crafted, locally made products from clothes to notebooks to coffee tables to cutting boards. Looking at the price tags, my first thoughts were “holy moly that’s expensive!”. But these are precisely the types of products that I hope to be able to buy in the future... pieces of functional art work that are made with the artist’s soul and don’t bring harm through their production...
I am reading “Loving Frank” by Nancy Horan (a gripping, heart wrenching read!), and in the process learning about the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright - the genius, eccentric Chicago based architect. One passage that I read today totally sums up this concept:
She looked at him skeptically. “So I shouldn’t worry about money.”
Frank sighed. “No, it always comes. It’s never been the reason I practice architecture. But money can buy beautiful things, and I need beautiful things around me. I’m an artist, Mame. You more than anyone should comprehend that. Beautiful objects stimulate me, they inspire me. Look at this.” He pointed to the delicate hand stitch on the lapels. “I don’t buy junk. When I buy something, it’s got to be perfection or I don’t want it,” he said. “You won’t find me coming home with five cheap suits, one for each day of the week. I’d rather have one perfect suit or none.”
But even if we can’t buy the “perfect suit”, whatever that may be, let us learn to be content with less. We all know, in our heads, that material things won’t make us happy. But in practice, we still seem to think that the grass is greener and that these substances can bring us happiness. Lets continue to lift our eyes above the factories and to the heavens, to where true peace, joy and love are to be found.