Diderot's Dressing Gown: The Answer To the Question, "Why Am I Like This?"

For a long time, one of my greatest frustrations has been this ridiculous way of thinking I have, whereby my style, appearance, wardrobe, preferences and identity are all tied up in one enormous, oddly-shaped, possibly ticking parcel, onto which I become desperate to stick a label.

 "Ah..." says my brain. "I see you are admiring those patterned harem pants. This means you must be a HIPPY. Come now, cast aside your former identity as a non-hippy, put on this patchouli and go out and buy some bangles forthwith."

However, on the way to the bangle shop (bear with me, kids), I am tempted by a velvet cloak and some mugwort tea.

 "Ah..." says brain. " I was mistaken before. You are in fact a PAGAN. Come now, cast aside those harem pants and let us seek some altar statues and medieval gowns."

On the way to the medieval tailor I stop to admire a pair of combat boots.

 "Ah..." says brain. "It appears you are a GOTH..."

And so on. You get the picture. I have this whole mishmash of things I'm into, but my brain would really rather it not be a mishmash, and instead be a nicely defined category with a set of convenient searchable keywords. Whatever new item I'm most in love with suddenly becomes The! Defining! Piece!, and I immediately want a completely new wardrobe (personality/bookshelf/living space) that channels the same vibe. Given that in my time I have run the gamut from dreadlocked hippy to befanged goth chick and back again via a brief dalliance with pink velour tracksuits and furry moon boots (what can I say, I'm changeable), this gets very old. And tiring. And confusing. Not to mention expensive.

Turns out there's a name for this kind of thinking, and it's not actually uncommon, although my brain's fetish for alternative lifestyle niches that may or may not exist ('granny punk' was a descriptor I once briefly used, for example) may not be typical. 

Allow me to Wikipedia at you: "The Diderot effect is a social phenomenon related to consumer goods. It is based on two ideas. The first idea is that goods purchased by consumers will align with their sense of identity, and, as a result, will complement one another. The second idea states that the introduction of a new possession that deviates from the consumer's current complementary goods can result in a process of spiraling consumption."

Boom.

You can actually see the Diderot effect working on me in the second half of this post I wrote in April. The term comes from this dude Diderot, a French philosopher, who several hundred years ago was given a new dressing gown. In comparison to this new item, the rest of his stuff started to seem lacklustre, inelegant, tacky. Diderot replaced his straw armchair with a newer, swankier model in Moroccan leather. Then he got a new writing table to replace his old desk. And so on, and so on... until he ended up in debt.

"I was absolute master of my old dressing gown," Diderot lamented, "but I have become a slave to my new one."

Grant McCracken, who coined the term 'Diderot effect', also spoke about 'Diderot unities'. This is similar to the way my brain clumps consumer goods together under basic labels: goth stuff, hippie stuff and so on. Most of your stuff will quite possibly represent your preferred Diderot unity - this is what you might think of as 'your style'. 

"A Diderot unity is a group of objects that are considered to be culturally complementary, in relation to one another. We as consumers, strive towards unity in appearance and representation of one’s self-image and social role. However, it can also mean that if a beautiful object deviant from the preferred Diderot unity is acquired, it may have the effect of causing us to start subscribing to a completely different Diderot unity," says this article. This sounds rather similar indeed to my bewildered bouncing from style to style over the last decade and a half.

Happily, the above-linked article also has some suggestions on how to defeat the Diderot effect - most of which are markedly similar to those I have blundered into through trial and error throughout my shopping ban attempts, including:

- Unsubscribe from marketing emails

- If you need to buy something, e.g. new clothing, make sure it works with your existing stuff

- Don't browse shopping websites

- Hang out with your friends somewhere that is not a shopping centre

For myself, I'm hopeful that just knowing the Diderot effect is at work, and being able to recognise it, will help to negate its power.

So there you have it. Learn from my mistakes, and those of a French philosopher in the 1700s: don't be a slave to your dressing gown.

Finding the Urban Wild

In June we moved house, from our grey council estate further into town. In many ways it was a relief - the new mortgage was cheaper than the rent, and finally we could put our own stamp on our dwelling without worrying about the landlord. Living closer to town was convenient for visiting friends, family, and helpfully our house is on the same road as the nursery the Spud will eventually be going to. The house is smaller, but it's a 1940s build with a fireplace and a beautiful archway between the kitchen and living room. It desperately needs redecorating, and we're trying to sell a lot of our furniture on Facebook marketplace in order to actually fit, but it's a brilliant house and I love it.

The garden is quite big, but it hasn't been tended in some years and is made largely of weeds and mud. This means I'm out there from dawn til dusk digging madly and putting down lawn seed, as about every two minutes the Spud traipses dirty footprints all through the house. I've given up on keeping anything clean in the meanwhile, so the downstairs is slowly becoming a swamp. I have also started a small herb garden and a vegetable patch, and my first crop of beetroot is coming along nicely. (I did, however, discover that we have an infestation of chafer grubs, which kill lawns - d'oh - so I'm going to sow clover seeds as a cover crop, which will also be good for the butterflies and bees.)

However, there have been some downsides to moving into a more urban area. Firstly, I no longer have easy access to woodlands and meadows for my walks with the Spud. We are within half an hour's walk of two brilliant nature reserves (the one we have made our territory for the last couple of years, and another, which is Green Flag rated and rather splendid), but it's not quite the same as having the river right on the back doorstep. I was surprised by how adrift and disconnected I have felt, not having quite such easy access to green space. We have been exploring the scrubby patches of trees and greenery around the edges of urban life, and I am learning that this kind of hardy, defiant growth has a very different spirit. It's harder to feel that strong sense of connection that I had been experiencing, but I'm hopeful that I can adjust and learn from this. I have Claire Dunn's Rewilding the Urban Soul and Tara Sanchez's Urban Faery Magick on my reading list to help me get acclimated!

Pentagram graffiti under a bridge. 
This is the same river that runs through the nature reserve where the Spud and I used to walk, but the vibe here is very different!

A more worrisome discovery is that living two minutes from the high street has kicked my consumerism into high gear. I've gradually been getting this back under control, but it wasn't an outcome I'd considered and it caught me rather by surprise! Sometimes it was obvious - hey, I'll just go browse this artisan market and the local independent shops for some home decor bits... yes, I definitely need another candle holder... - and sometimes less so - hey, a Nepalese takeaway, I'll just stop for some momos... hey, a Waitrose, I really fancy some sushi - but I quickly noticed that my finances were feeling the pinch and started avoiding the shops (and takeaways) unless I actually needed something.

The Spud wasn't immune to this either! He's well aware that shops are large repositories of toys, sweets and other things he doesn't have yet (on our last foray into the local independent shops he wanted a lucky waving cat and some crystal tumblestones... that's my boy) and has taken to hurling himself on the floor screaming if he is not bought Things! Immediately! I don't mind withstanding the hurricane of a toddler tantrum and will sit on the street and wait him out rather than cave in and buy a new toy from every shop we happen to pass, but avoiding the high street for now is probably the best strategy for both of us...

Another manifestation of the consumer trap I've noticed since we moved is that now I live on one of the main thoroughfares into town and am seeing lots more people every day, my anxiety about how I present myself also kicked up a notch for a while, and I had a few weeks where I wanted to waft around in flowy skirts and lots of jewellery to present a suitably alternative and Pagan appearance (although if questioned I'm quite sniffy about adopting a Pagan uniform, go figure). Looking a bit mysterious and witchy is far from being a problem in itself of course, but in my case it meant wanting to buy lots of new clothes, and also a tendency to stop doing the actual work in favour of spending a bit more time on my eyeliner. Style over substance is something I can easily slip into, and it's really not worth it.

This phase luckily came to an end when I was out on the new (to us) nature reserve and realised that I felt a bit conspicuous in my outfit. It was easier to switch off from the everyday and get connected when I was in my usual t-shirt and jeans or leggings. As I'd realised before, what feels great on Glastonbury high street or at the local rock bar doesn't always work well in other situations, particularly when my focus needs to turn outwards instead of inwards. I've not given up on my flowy skirts and jewellery for occasions when I know I'll be comfortable wearing them, but it was a reminder that, boring though it might seem to blend in, it does help me stop worrying about the surface stuff and writing shopping lists in my head and actually, y'know, do some Druiding.

Other than regularly visiting the nature reserves and spending lots of time in my garden, I have some other activities planned to help a) with being an effective student of Druidry and b) my transition to less consumerist living. Firstly, on my street there is a town museum, with a strong focus on the Iron Age, and I must pay a visit. I really want to get to know the history of this area, its folklore and - yes - its ghost stories (because I'm nerdy about spooky tales!). Secondly, I'm going to explore local shops of a different kind - I'm talking local produce and our excellent plant nursery. Thirdly, if time allows (which admittedly it may not) I'm considering getting involved with the group that runs conservation activities on the nature reserves as well as at other sites up and down the river. And lastly I've signed up to write infrequently on environmental issues for a local paper. I've also been asked to run a yin yoga class and guided meditation session for a dear friend's mental health support group - this is a bit out of my comfort zone (speaking? In front of humans?!) but when I thought about it, it seemed like a good way of supporting and being of service to my community. None of which require me to buy new clothes!

But I think the most important thing I can do is the same as it's always been - keep going outside!

Just Eat It: Intuitive Eating and the Ghosts of Diets Past

I've been reading a book recently called Just Eat It: how intuitive eating can help you get your shit together around food, by Laura Thomas PhD. A few pages in, I wanted to recommend it to pretty much every woman I know. Occasionally by slapping them upside the head with it until they read it, though I'm told that's frowned upon.

I can't call this a book review, because a book review needs to be fairly analytic and I struggled to evaluate this book logically beyond AAAAARGH MY MIND IS BLOWN EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS. Let's call this a book discussion, instead, because boy, did some weird shit come up for me while I read this.

Firstly, I hadn't really realised that diet culture is insidious as fuck. Take a second look at the TV viewing you grew up with, after reading this book. Here's a snapshot from my developing years: Friends. Buffy. 90210. The OC. Ally McBeal. Farscape. Other than showing my age, I suddenly realised that according to these (admittedly enjoyable) shows, there's pretty much only one way to have a female body, unless you are an actual alien. Cast members from several of these shows admitted to suffering from eating disorders whilst filming. This was such a lightbulb moment for me - until fairly recently, the vast and incredible diversity of human bodies was literally nowhere in the media. (I'm also white, cis, straight-sized and able-bodied, so compared to a lot of folks I'm well-represented in mainstream media.) There is one single main body type held up as 'standard' or 'normal' for women - thus all other bodies are implied to be aberrational (see: the running joke in Friends about how Monica used to be fat).

This obviously struck several chords for me, as I had a bizarre, somewhat melancholy dream about being a crew member on the set of a TV show whose entire job consisted of lovingly framing the actresses' hipbones and making them look as thin as possible. Doy....

I also found myself remembering the ghosts of diets past with a weird nostalgic fondness. That buzz that comes from the hope that this time, the stars will align and you'll magically transform into the thin toned babe in the lycra booty shorts, swishing your hair on Miami Beach. Or something. The excitement, the anticipation of a new "wellness plan". That one diet book I followed (with the hideous subtitle of 'get skinnier than all your friends') where you consume nothing but black coffee till lunchtime, blow up balloons every day, and take an ice-cold bath every morning (I'm not kidding, I did this). 

The chapters on clean eating and concepts around 'processed' foods were fascinating to me as well. I almost... didn't want to accept the facts being presented to me. Part of me wanted to continue to believe that the right combination of chia seeds, spirulina, coconut water and kale would make me pure and clean and lovely and forever unhungry. How can so many Instagrammers be wrong?!

The reason I chose to buy this book at this time was that I have a bit of a pot belly going on at the moment. This was brought to my attention by several friends and family members getting excited about my 'good news' and asking when I was due.

At first I laughed this off - I'd spent a good portion of our holiday on a cider farm... maybe I was becoming one with the apples? - but after a while it started to get to me and I started considering a diet. I'm not really sure why. If diets worked, there wouldn't need to be a multibillion pound industry built around the concept. Also, been there, done that, hated it, would put the whole concept in a dustbin and set fire to it if I could. I own a t-shirt that says 'screw diet culture', for goodness' sake. But in a moment of self-consciousness and weakness, the urge was there.

Happily for me I bought this book instead.

Why does this relate to my blog about consumerism? Well. Sit ye down and I'll tell you a story about the hundreds and thousands of pounds I would not have spent if I hadn't believed for a decade and more that the way I naturally look is actually a problem. A problem that it is presented as being my duty, nay, my life's work to solve.

Times that amount of money by the number of women in my friendship group caught in the same trap. Times that amount of money by the number of people in the world caught in the same trap. How many years of your life have you spent fighting your own body? How many products have you bought to hide, flatter, disguise, slim, tone, lift, sculpt? How many uncomfortable garments have you tolerated because you believed in some dark recess of your mind that your body, not the badly made clothing, was the problem?

Diet culture is fucking poison. Don't swallow it.

I thought I knew my onions (sorry) about food and nutrition, but this book was a revelation. I've remembered how to listen to my body instead of the clock. I laugh in the face of food guilt. I take great pleasure in reminding myself 'nutrition is cumulative!' when that stupid little voice in the back of my head starts chuntering away about my food.

If you've ever felt guilty about eating a doughnut, seriously, read this book.

Letter to the Earth

Written for the Letters to the Earth project. I'd love for you to write and share your own letters (which can be art, or poetry, or however you like to express yourself) to help encourage and inspire change ahead of the COP in November. In uncertain times, putting pen to paper can be cathartic. And the more of us who speak up on behalf of the Earth, the harder we become to ignore.

Dear Earth,

I'd love to have something pithy and original to say here, but I'm going to try to speak from the heart. I think you deserve that much. 

The fact is that I'm scared. I never thought I'd be a mum, but now that I am, now that there's a little being dependent on me, I'm finally looking around at the mess we're in, and I'm terrified that it's too late to make meaningful change. 

For a long time I took you for granted. Yet as a child I loved nature. I loved to play in the woods and build 'grass houses' in the fields. I still remember waking early on frosty mornings to ride horses out on the rolling downs, when the grass was still cold enough to crackle under their hooves. I remember building dens in the woods with my friends, coming home for dinner with muddy knees and leaves in our hair.

I'm not sure when the disconnect started, but I know that for a while there was a time when I was too busy to notice a sunset, too concerned about my hair and make-up to swim in the sea. I'm lucky that my little one loves nothing more than to be outside - our daily walks gradually, quietly reminded me of all the wonder that was here all along. 

I just want to tell you that I can see now the state that we're in, and I want to change it. I want to help you, to protect you, like I wish I had been doing all along. I want my little boy to have a future, a safe and thriving future, but even had I not been a mother, I would want to protect and cherish you simply because it's right. Because you have given me everything. You are my mother, and my mother's mother. You were my playmate in childhood, and as I grew up your beauty gave me strength when I felt down or lost. 

I'm sorry for all the ways that I am and have been part of the problem. Change is slow, and going against the grain of convenience and consumerism is sometimes stupidly difficult. I'm also sorry that those in power are choosing not to listen to our voices. It's frustrating, and it's terrifying, when every day more is lost and we have so much more to lose. It seems that those who could change things will not. I'm furious that 'growth' and profit and business-as-usual are deemed more important than the Amazon and the pollinators and the oceans, and I don't understand how we came to conflate destruction with progress.

But I promise that I will keep trying to do what I can. I promise to take action on your behalf, as much and as often and as fiercely as I can. And I will keep on loving you, and I will teach my little boy to love you too, with all his wild heart.

Forever,

Kat

Scenes From The Impossible Rebellion

On Tuesday this week, the Spud and I found ourselves on the train to London. I hadn't really thought that I'd be able to take part in the Impossible Rebellion in person this year, mainly due to financial concerns but also because I'm a full-time parent and that's kind of an intense job. So on Sunday, when I learned about the XR Families group and their kid-friendly Feed-In and Play-In, I immediately started looking at train tickets. 

Monday night, I almost didn't sleep. I'd seen some scary scenes of somewhat aggressive policing at the protests, and whilst I trusted the organisers to have arranged a child-safe space, I was still a little nervous. Still, I reasoned, I wasn't going to be locked on to anything or glued to the pavement - if at any point I felt uncomfortable, we would get up and leave. 

I channelled my nervous energy into making a 'Little Rebel' patch for the Spud out of a stained old t-shirt, and for myself I recycled an old tote into a back patch for my waistcoat. I wanted to be able to cover the patches with our jackets if need be - I'd seen photos of a mother and children refused access to a protest site, preparing their materials in the street. I didn't fancy travelling all that way to become a rebellion of two, so I wanted us to be able to move 'undercover' if we had to!

Once we arrived in London we had plenty of time to make our way to the meeting point, as specified in an encrypted message by the organisers. We got there early, which was just as well, as the intended meeting place had been made inaccessible, so I had to try to follow directions on Google Maps to find the others. My complete inability to navigate made a five-minute walk feel like half an hour, but luckily the rebels were pretty easy to spot, their pink flags proudly bearing hearts and hourglasses. 

A lot of this particular group seemed to already know each other. There was a definite middle-class-hippie vibe, and the fashion choices ranged from cardie and leggings to the ubiquitous vegan mama uniform of colourful-harem-pants-and-relaxed-jumper. I spotted a boiler suit hand-painted with the XR hourglass on the back, with a tree growing up through the middle. The organiser Miranda made a point of personally greeting all the new arrivals, which was nice, and I struck up a pleasant conversation with a friendly blonde lady with a perky ponytail and a child slightly older than the Spud.

The Spud and I settled on the edges of the group. He was tired by this point and deeply cranky, but from his hiding place in my lap I could see one bright eye roving over the other babies and children. Eventually he plucked up courage to join the group and begin chalking on the pavement, beside a blonde boy of about nine years old, who, much to my amusement, was writing 'DISOBEY' in capital letters. (The Spud drew a tree.)

Watching the kids playing, I almost jumped out of my skin as an arm slid around my shoulders. It was a chap in patchwork trousers and a 'police liason' pink high vis, who introduced himself and asked who he needed to check in with. I directed him to Miranda, not sure whether to feel pleased or vaguely alarmed.

Once the group had assembled - don't ask me for an estimate of numbers; it seemed a desperately small group to begin with but by the time we set off our numbers had swelled - we began our march through Cheapside to the Bank of England. The Spud mostly marched with the index finger of his free hand jammed firmly in his nostril, so I was quite glad when I reviewed the livestream (you can see our action from 2.16; it's worth watching to hear the speakers) later on to find that the walk itself wasn't broadcast. Plenty of people stopped to watch the rebels go by and to take photos. One motorist beeped his horn as we crossed the road; not sure if it was encouragement or derision. A cyclist pulled her bike over to applaud.

We arrived outside the Bank of England and spread out on the pavements on either side of the road. As soon as the police and our liasons halted traffic, the group rushed into the road itself, spread out our picnic blankets, and sat down, much to the surprise and exasperation of our police escort. There we remained for the next hour or so, forming a road block. The kids played together, made art, blew bubbles, and we all sang songs. A friend I sent pictures to commented on how peaceful it was compared to the bad rap XR get in the press. Several speakers gave talks, notably Caroline Lucas from the Green Party. The speaker from Afghanistan moved several people to tears, including me. 

At three o'clock, the rebels had agreed with the police we would move off the road, and we did exactly that, resuming our camp on the pavement outside Fortnum and Masons, where a panel of doctors and scientists had set up an 'emergency childcare meeting' at a pink table. By half past three the Spud was indicating that he had had enough, so we quietly gathered our things and headed back to the station. At least he had had fun sharing toys with a new friend, and perhaps we had inconvenienced one or two billionaires. I like to hope that we helped get the message across in some small way, but it seems to me that however loudly we sing, no one in power is listening.

Why the Bank of England?

From an email from Digital Rebellion, whose actions this week are also focussing on the Bank of England: "The Bank of England regulates and oversees the stability of The Uk's economy. It had the power to bail out the banks during the Banking Crisis and to supply billions of pounds in COVID loans this year. 

"To quote them: "Promoting the good of the people of the United Kingdom by maintaining monetary and financial stability."

"Did you know that billions of taxpayers' money during the pandemic was handed to Fossil Fuel companies in the shape of very low interest rate loans (0.3 to 0.7% interest) - adding to the Climate Disaster we’re facing? Did you know that the Bank of England also has its own investments and bonds in Fossil Fuel companies? 

"The Bank of England acts behind marble walls and layers of institutional secrecy - but our money is being spent on propping up the very companies responsible for pushing us over 1.5C degree warming into 3C and they have said it on their own website. The Bank of England could, overnight if they wished, refuse any financial institution in the UK to do business with Fossil Fools. Have they? Nope.

"Recently, the Bank of England has claimed to build a ‘Path to Net Zero’ but its actions fail to live up to even that hollow promise. We ask whether the Bank of England will stop funding fossil fuels? We ask whether it has a Climate Bail Out fund for the flooded cities, ruined businesses, and impoverished communities that the Climate Crisis will create? We ask whether it will ensure that UK insurance companies keep their promise? Because so far it has utterly failed us - despite telling us they work for the Good People of The United Kingdom they are still doing business as usual and funding Climate Change."