Nerd Church - The World In A Spin

 

I recently took up spinning my own yarn from wool - because apparently I wasn't doing enough weird old-timey crafts for my brain's liking.

So, yeah, in addition to my previous heritage (i.e. ye olde timey,) crafts - knitting, weaving, embroidery, and cross-stitch - I now also spin wool fibre into yarn.

...Honestly sometimes my brain just, entirely out-of-the-blue, is like, 'we should learn how to abseil while painting stained glass windows!'* and I'm just like, 'yeah, sure, why not?'

(I do some non-heritage crafts too. Because I am like this, apparently. 😅)

*Don't panic, it hasn't actually suggested doing that. Yet.

Anyhow, it got me to thinking - we don't know enough about how stuff gets made, about where stuff comes from.

We in the modern world - especially in the West and the global North - have become so far removed from the means and methods of production that we can't even fathom it any more.

(Can you tell I was raised by South Wales Valleys (i.e. Socialist,) working-class hippies? Yeah? Great. 😅)

And that's not a good thing. Because it means we don't value what went into making this thing in front of us.

Is it any wonder that consumerism is totally out of control when we aren't taught to appreciate the work and the materials that go into things?

Is it really a surprise that we're struggling so much to curb our overuse of resources and move towards a much-needed, greener, way of living?

There are way more steps between sheep-shearing and usable yarn than you would think

- so many things that have to be done with this fragile fluffy gift in order to make it something that can clothe us and keep us warm.

...How many of us really think about it, when we buy clothes?

I'm not saying we should all move into mud huts and collect rain water to bathe.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it ain't my thing - too many spiders.)

Neither am I saying that it's practical to buy only the most ethical-est, greenest, items possible. (Though the people who can most afford to seem to be the ones least likely to do so.)

...For one thing, it's not always straight-forward to identify what's 'ethical.'

A lot of vegans, for example, won't buy or use wool at all

 - and I could write a full blogpost, as a lifelong vegetarian, about why I personally think that's ethically short-sighted and a false virtue.

But I won't, because I'm pretty sure the only people who would read it, are the ones who wouldn't actually read it, and would yell at me instead. 😅

(Before you're tempted to yell at me here: I don't care if you use wool or not, you do you. 😘 )

I don't have the answers.

But maybe we should all slow down, and think about it a little more.

And at the very least, we need to value and take care of the stuff that we do own. 

It's not materialistic to appreciate your things; so long as you keep some perspective, it's probably the opposite.

Did that make the slightest bit of sense?

Do we need to appreciate the processes of production more?

Talk to me! 😊💬

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Previous Nerd Church Posts:

• Nerd Church - My Kind of Horror

• Nerd Church - Short Story: Some Space

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