The Shadow Years

…hopefully!

I did my best, but it wasnt much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didnt come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah… *Leonard Cohen

This is not the one post you might expect here on ChromeMusic about Leonard Cohen. It’s just the time to use his words for whatever needed. Besides that I am not even sure this is the relevant quote. Not finding the right words  just manifests my desperate search for some answers and solutions on how to spend this ridiculously short ammount of time here on this planet as a *good* human. (Considered from the top of the ancient egyptian pyramides this life time really is ridiculous but that’s worth another post…)
Ok, this is going too far – my actual point:

Watch this Documentary (or Short Film however you want to call it) called ‘Unravel’ !

Filmed in 2012 by the director Meghna Gupta the topic mass consumption of the western world is more actual than ever before. And is a topic that concerns me intensly over the last months. Yes, I am spending more time on zero waste blogs to find the right receipts for my DIY dish cleaner than finding new songs these days. You can do many things to safe this planet, to avoid plastic, to safe water, to recycle your things. But when it comes to clothes I still don’t have a solution that suits me.  I remember this wonderful talk I had with my best friend back in summer when we were sitting in one of these instagram cafés, both of us enjoying the last warmth of the sinking sun with a glass of campari mixed with fresh orange juice in our hands (is there anything we really can complain about in our lifes?). I just came back from shopping or better said from rushing through all the big shops, buying nothing and getting angry about all these useless clothes they offer you all made in Cambodia, Marocco and god knows where else. So it was her job to take me out of this ‘carrying the pain of the whole world within me’ mood. I did some research before, did want to know how evil H&M and all the others really are. I mean, they entice all of us with green campaigns, fair trade cotton and recycling deals. But as an ‘educated’ human being in the western world can you really believe them and spend less than 5 Euro for a T-shirt? I doubt it. You hardly find the behind the scenes information I was looking for, so I gave up. Yes, H&M does finance some water safe projects but the sad truth is even if they’d do everything right there are still the traders from whom they get the fabric or the cotton and for sure nobody feels responsible for their working conditions. You see, this line has no end and we are all part of it. So we both agreed on doing the best we can do in our little cosmos, buying less, lending clothes to friends etc and ordered another drink.

Sorry, I could really work myself up on this topic. Just because I KNOW this all is going in a complete wrong direction and there has to be something to make a difference. Now you might say there are fair trade labels and shops popping up everywhere and I could choose to buy my clothes there. Or I could just buy vintage. You are right, I could. But first of all I don’t want to look like my art teacher in primary school and even if I don’t buy new clothes every week (what I don’t do anyway) like every girl I really enjoy buying new things from time to time. And I have to be honest – I haven’t reached that point yet where I easily spend 60 euro on a white shirt to make sure it’s fair trade.

So this short movie shows you all this tragedy from another perspective. And somehow it makes me wanna cry and laugh at the same time. Watching these beautiful woman laughing and sparkling in the middle of our waste in their colourful dresses touches my heart deeply. Although it’s just 15 min and pointing the finger on each and everyone of us (bc we all know it and all keep our eyes shut) listening to the thoughts of these woman and how they make fun of us ‘the educated people’ that they dream about to meet one day makes you smile and reminds you there must be something better on a higher level. somewhere.

Again. Don’t really have the right words yet so just watch it and I am sure you get my point.

Oh and don’t give me one of this foolish excuses like you don’t have time for this bc you need to spend time on your carreer or your own problems are enough for you to deal with. This is exactly one of your problems!

Good night.