Lately, I
let go a little, started to wear baggy trousers (God bless that elasticated
waist), let my hair run wilder and spotted a few holes in my socks,
knickers and now shirts, I let go!! I think this is due to the fact I believe I
am naturally beautiful so basic grooming suffices, though I noticed men only check me out when I wear my hair conformingly straight, it’s like I fit more
into their mentally-etched image of the type of women they could consider
suitable, because anything curly is considered foreign, wild or difficult.
One day on a
plane back (to London) from Algeria, the guy sitting next to me asked me if I
was Algerian. And that got me thinking, even if I looked painstakingly English
(which I don’t), the very fact I was on an airplane flying back from Algeria could considerably improve
the chances I was in fact Algerian. I acquiesced to his delight that I was
indeed Algerian and to continue with the charade he said well you’re a bit
Shoreditch! A free spirit? Ha ha ha I said
to him ”No I am Algerian, I can’t be a free-spirit” he didn’t get it. Then I
went back to my nap from which he had yanked me to question me about the
freedom of my spirit and I started to think about that ….and stuff!
A bit
Shoreditch?? Moi? Well I never! Anyway, a long story not so short, that got me
thinking about the nationally agreed Algerian look and how wearing baggy
trousers did not fit into it. But more about
the very notion of “free spirit”, how it got highjacked and “shorditified” as
if all the twats prancing around Shoreditch in those uber-skinny jeans or baggy
trousers (depends on the level of Artiness or Lositude…or somink), blazers and
beards are free spirits or true artists. You can’t be the free spirit you’re
dressed to be if in essence you are actually conforming to the Shoreditch
image. Conforming being the operative word here.
As an
Algerian, who considers herself a creative being I realised I could never claim
to be a free-spirit simply because I know to attain the status of true free
spirit I’ll have to live a life of a hermit away from all societal coercion,
religion or any political distribution of power and social tourbillon of
conformity somewhere I can live off the land and recycle my own pee. But perhaps
I can claim the title of a rebel, who doesn’t reject all societal obstructions
and rules but fights some, rejects some and accepts some.
Besides the Algerian free
spirit does not exist; “they” just won’t let it happen! They’ll use the weapon
of mass oppression, the rolling of the heads with the lips in a downward line,
they will laugh at your strange dress sense and curly hair or semblant of afro
you’ve been nursing for the last 3 years with no convincing result; They’ll say
it’s just a phase, your hair will be straight again one day, and they will
attribute your beard to religious beliefs to save face with the neighbours or
will coerce you into shaving it, it’s inevitable. If the phase lasts too long,
then it could be a case of hormonal instability or it has already been decided you’re
a sore loser and all your quirkiness is nothing other than a mean to hide your
loositude (new word)! It’s just not you, so stop
trying to stand out and go get married or something, your peers got married and
died already and you’re still wearing baggy trousers and leather bands on your
wrists! Seriously!
So to
recapitulate; if you have: A pair of baggy trousers or über skinny jeans, some
kind of rainbow old t-shirt, quirky jewellery and rubber bands, curly natural
hair and no make-up, wash your hair less than once a week, don’t own a
deodorant, own a rusty old vintage bike, by vintage I mean stolen and have a
jumper with a hole in it, have enough creativity to border on neurotic, the
unexplainable desire to break rules and just the right amount of weird! Then
you could qualify as a conforming free-spirit!
But you’ll never reach full potential or what Nietzsche calls “The Free spirit
by excellence”
What is striking here is
that even the rebels, free-spirits, artists and anarchists who boast
individuality and rebellion find themselves following a certain look, a certain
lifestyle, they are manipulated and affected by the same ideas and images and
flux into the same urban worm-holes and nukes and crannies of the city (any
city) to live amongst other similar-minded people, to escape the more rigid,
superficial and shallow sides of the city (again any city) only to find
themselves delving into a not so different social tourbillon of conformity and
end up pigeonholed like I was on that plane and put in the Shoreditch box.
Conformity and rebellion
are part of or two side of the same syndrome, because both are reactions to the
same pressure source, though there are those who secretly question society and
conformity and there are those who secretly conform like the Shoreditch crowd
and whatnots. So you conform secretly, when you straighten your hair until its
burnt smell is recognised before you come into view, or when you iron your
trousers (focusing on that line that parts your thigh in two -yeah you know who
you are), you conform when you think being a free spirit is a way of
attracting attention and is often a call for help! You also conform when you become the
source of pressure!
Isn't it scary (and a bit
boring frankly) to live your life exactly how someone else's or because someone
else decided on the status quo and you are just living it within a line
drawn by a parent, a teacher or an authority figure or entity? And every time you try to peer outside of
that marked line, you’ll be called a rebel. It almost feels as though the “free
spirit” label was invented to fool people into thinking they attained and are
in fact allowed to attain a certain level of free thinking and being without
any barriers.
So my point is (finally got there), you can be free to dress the part, but your spirit is far from being free as long as you are shackled by temporary possession and pleasures and can’t resist the tug of conformity and the imposing dams of society, you will spend your whole life a laver never turning into the butterfly.
Dz-chick….a conformist in denial…I
think!
