Look down at what you’re wearing. Right now, I have on jeans and an old t-shirt. Oddly enough, both were free. Also, I fetched both from my closet this morning thoughtlessly.
However, were I to look closer at my outfit, I would realize how many people’s hands were used in creating it. The Dalai Lama speaks often about how we are interdependent, how even the most simple clothing changes hands between people we don’t know, and will never know. My cotton shirt: first it was grown on a farm, tended not only by a proprietor but also farm hands who picked and deseeded (milled?) the cotton; the cotten was then made to useable thread and knitted in a factory run by strangers; it was dyed by someone running a machine; it was cut and sewn into a t-shirt; the screened print was designed (this time by someone I know) and applied (by someone I don’t). All these hands and thoughts went into something I carelessly threw on hours ago. This always seems to astound me.
The things we use, even the things with no packaging (like veggies or fruits or gasoline) have been made for us. They have been picked, shipped, refined, sold, and packaged for us. Each and every thing I own was touched by someone else, simply in preparation for me to have it.
If I look around my house, I can see how little I actually OWN. That I made myself. Even the stuff I knit (by the way, does knitting stuff for myself count as buying new clothes?) is made of yarn I bought from a store. I don’t have a sheep outside my apartment that I shear and spin.
For some reason, this just overwhelmed me. Whew! But maybe this feeling will give me pause the next time I reach to buy something new. It will at least make me realize that I am not alone, and that my choices affect others. So I should make the right ones.
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