And then you have a lot to say...
I was thinking that it had been a bit since I posted, and it has, but honestly, sometimes I'm at a loss for words. I'm always wordy, but usually about nothing at all. Today though I was thinking about a couple things: This new fangled fad for brides to do dress-destruction after they get married and the notion of carbon offsets to legitimize music acts to have a big fest on global warming and the consequences of said warming.
Spoutage:
Dress destuction just seems like the most ridiculous conspicuous consumption ever. It's like a potlatch without any cultural siginificance or system of redistribution. Step one: go buy hugely expensive confection for one-day event. Step two: ruin confection by jumping into swamp/pool/mud/vat o' jello and take a picture of doing it cause it's oh so amusing. i really do not get this. This probably is due in part to my being like the stereotypical little girl of old where I have designed my ideal wedding dress a million times in my head. (I am a frustrated fashion designer. i just lack the drawing and sewing skillz.) So, to me the idea is that a wedding dress should really be made of your hopes and dreams transformed into fabric. It's not just a dress; it's a symbol. Yes, this is terribly old fashioned of me. However, if that's *not* how one feels about a wedding dress, then one ought to get something that you might well use again. Something simple and perhaps not the "classic white dress" routine would make sense to me. I can see a whole lot of virtue to that, it's practical and it could be a hell of a lot of fun to get something really cute and/or special that's just a great dress that you might wear to cocktail parties or fancy events (something great in another color that's suitably splashy just not "bridey"). I can even understand just doing casual for a low-key beach or backyard wedding. I get the no-little-girl-confection thing. What I do not get it is the idea that people spend thousands of dollars on something just to ruin it. It seems to me that if your money and resources matter so little to you, that you just NOT spend the sum on the dress and then put the money toward something you either do care about, or donate the money to a cause that could USE your money. I know that this all started as an artistic statement, and I understand the experimentation and the questioning of "bridezillas and bride culture" but I think it's gotten stupid. People doing it now aren't doing it for artistic merit. They're doing it cause they think it's cute. It's not cute. It's just waste. Welcome to your disposable future. Makes you wonder if they will treate the marriage the same way. (wonder if there are possible case studies there... follow up on how many brides that dispose of dresses this way will have a tendency to dispose of marriages more than the average?)
Live Earth concerts: I haven't been watching any of them today. Been too busy doing other stuff, but I had heard some people on the radio noting that the artists playing in the concerts purchased offsets to compensate for flying all over the planet for these concerts. Here's my stand on offsets: nice try, thanks for playing. They assuage the guilt of people, but in reality they do nothing to really reduce global warming. The way that we change the problem of global warming isn't byu purchasing offsets. It's by changing consumption. Offsets are nice and everything, and the soil or the trees will produce oxygen, but these offsets are not permanent (trees die and decay and release carbon, and soil offsets haven't been proven to hold the carbon for long either. disturb the soil and phwoosh there goes your stored carbon.) and if you consider that if everyone wanted to purchase offsets, there wouldn't be enough land to do much of anything else with, then you begin to realize that the way to solve this isn't by buying offsets. it's about changing the way we live our lives. Do I think it's better than nothing... Yeah, but it's like sticking your finger in the dyke. I'm not a paragon, but I'm also not on stage preaching and having people drive and fly their cars to come see my ginormous concerts thus causing more greenhouse emissions. I sound really anti the environmental movement, but I'm not. I agree with the goals of the movement, and the concerns they have. I just think that this is the wrong way to go about solving the problem.
Oh and lastly: I mused on my father, whom I love a lot. He's been so cranky lately, and I don't want to be like that. I do not plan on being pollyanna, but his general negativity is not something that I want to be like. So, while what I have said here is not all that optimistic, I do think that I am more positive than I am negative attitude-wise. Rejection and negativity make enjoying the world so difficult, and I do think there's lots to enjoy. I don't want to be childish, just child-like.
Spoutage:
Dress destuction just seems like the most ridiculous conspicuous consumption ever. It's like a potlatch without any cultural siginificance or system of redistribution. Step one: go buy hugely expensive confection for one-day event. Step two: ruin confection by jumping into swamp/pool/mud/vat o' jello and take a picture of doing it cause it's oh so amusing. i really do not get this. This probably is due in part to my being like the stereotypical little girl of old where I have designed my ideal wedding dress a million times in my head. (I am a frustrated fashion designer. i just lack the drawing and sewing skillz.) So, to me the idea is that a wedding dress should really be made of your hopes and dreams transformed into fabric. It's not just a dress; it's a symbol. Yes, this is terribly old fashioned of me. However, if that's *not* how one feels about a wedding dress, then one ought to get something that you might well use again. Something simple and perhaps not the "classic white dress" routine would make sense to me. I can see a whole lot of virtue to that, it's practical and it could be a hell of a lot of fun to get something really cute and/or special that's just a great dress that you might wear to cocktail parties or fancy events (something great in another color that's suitably splashy just not "bridey"). I can even understand just doing casual for a low-key beach or backyard wedding. I get the no-little-girl-confection thing. What I do not get it is the idea that people spend thousands of dollars on something just to ruin it. It seems to me that if your money and resources matter so little to you, that you just NOT spend the sum on the dress and then put the money toward something you either do care about, or donate the money to a cause that could USE your money. I know that this all started as an artistic statement, and I understand the experimentation and the questioning of "bridezillas and bride culture" but I think it's gotten stupid. People doing it now aren't doing it for artistic merit. They're doing it cause they think it's cute. It's not cute. It's just waste. Welcome to your disposable future. Makes you wonder if they will treate the marriage the same way. (wonder if there are possible case studies there... follow up on how many brides that dispose of dresses this way will have a tendency to dispose of marriages more than the average?)
Live Earth concerts: I haven't been watching any of them today. Been too busy doing other stuff, but I had heard some people on the radio noting that the artists playing in the concerts purchased offsets to compensate for flying all over the planet for these concerts. Here's my stand on offsets: nice try, thanks for playing. They assuage the guilt of people, but in reality they do nothing to really reduce global warming. The way that we change the problem of global warming isn't byu purchasing offsets. It's by changing consumption. Offsets are nice and everything, and the soil or the trees will produce oxygen, but these offsets are not permanent (trees die and decay and release carbon, and soil offsets haven't been proven to hold the carbon for long either. disturb the soil and phwoosh there goes your stored carbon.) and if you consider that if everyone wanted to purchase offsets, there wouldn't be enough land to do much of anything else with, then you begin to realize that the way to solve this isn't by buying offsets. it's about changing the way we live our lives. Do I think it's better than nothing... Yeah, but it's like sticking your finger in the dyke. I'm not a paragon, but I'm also not on stage preaching and having people drive and fly their cars to come see my ginormous concerts thus causing more greenhouse emissions. I sound really anti the environmental movement, but I'm not. I agree with the goals of the movement, and the concerns they have. I just think that this is the wrong way to go about solving the problem.
Oh and lastly: I mused on my father, whom I love a lot. He's been so cranky lately, and I don't want to be like that. I do not plan on being pollyanna, but his general negativity is not something that I want to be like. So, while what I have said here is not all that optimistic, I do think that I am more positive than I am negative attitude-wise. Rejection and negativity make enjoying the world so difficult, and I do think there's lots to enjoy. I don't want to be childish, just child-like.