Hello and welcome back to my ranting corner!
I am not going to lie, trying to find something interesting to write about is getting more and more difficult. So I thought to myself, why not write about the struggle itself, the cause of this lack of inspiration?
Why is there so little to tell? I keep Zooming my friends and video-calling my family and there just isn’t anything worth mentioning in my life. My bestie and I end up chatting for hours about the laundry that we finally managed to fold, the new recipes we are trying out, and the weight we have put on. It all feels a little bit depressing.
“It is what it is, innit?”
I keep repeating this mantra to myself and to others as I numb myself into a lethargic mode. I have stopped asking people if they have any news because frankly if anyone has anything remotely interesting happening in their lives they would tell me immediately. We are starved for meaning.
It’s been a year of Covid-19, a year since life as we knew it stopped. We are stuck into a lockdown with no finish line, and this has shown me the value of things with terrible clarity. We long for things to do, not for things. I must admit, at the start of lockdown in March/April, I sort of followed the consumerist trend. Buy something to make yourself feel better for a second - in this instant gratification economy we exist in. But as I scrolled and scrolled I found the activity less and less appealing. Starved of experiences in the real world, I tried to replace my emptiness with objects. What a foolish thing to do!
Now I find myself with thirty-two makeup brushes I’ve used three times and a grey wig I used once on Halloween! How did the pandemic make me forget everything I hated and criticised? Or did this year actually help me focus on what really matters? Was Covid-19 just a big excuse I used to avoid thinking about the other even more pressing concerns of the world?
When did I think that buying clothes from Shein was going to be a good idea? Thank God I saw the light and returned everything - but the damage was done. I had betrayed my ideals!
I’ve always hated buying clothes online since I always try everything on
I despise fast-fashion!
I really didn’t have the need for those additional objects in my wardrobe!
We need to consume less, not more.
So let’s stop using Covid-19 as a break from criticising the world and its other issues. Actually, the recent events should highlight how capitalism has failed us. At the moment we needed to come together as a world community, we fell back into absurd individualism. But as I always say, it’s not all bad!
Moments of crisis have always sparked incredible altruism and acts of generosity. So can we all take a bit of time to make ourselves better? But most importantly, can we all spare a minute to think about how we would like our ideal world to look like and actually take that one first step towards it?
I have reflected this attitude in my workplace. Time to stop sleeping my way through lockdown. I will graduate in about 6 months and I had never stopped one second to think about what my future at 448 Studio might look like. Now that I have, I have filled my mind with questions and excitement about the future. What do I really want to do? Who do I want to become? - these are the beautiful questions we should be asking ourselves.
To answer such questions, your gal is probably going to go full time and earn a bit of money for the first time in her life. But I have learned that I need very little to survive, I just need to stop myself impulse buying from the giant corporations I should boycott.
To sum up: Activism is cool, Climate change is real & Let’s do something about it!
Thanks for coming to my TedTalk,
See you all again not so soon.
Laura
