After an experience like BlogHer – or really any trip to Target or jaunt to the shopping mall – it’s easy to write off most of America as caring little about individuality or originality. It’s easy to see mainstream society as caring more about cheap stuff, brand names, and the status quo.
I do my very best to build up walls, barricading myself into a windowless house filled with like-minded people and ironic indie art prints. I’m very good at shutting people out who aren’t in the club. I often don’t even try to explain what I do for a living anymore.
And so I miss out.
I miss out on the opportunity to evangelize for big dreams, creativity, and passion-filled lives.
It’s easy for me to stay comfortable. To let you as readers pat me on the back as I preach to the choir. It’s easy to sing along to my Melody Gardot Pandora station and glance up at vintage cups sitting above my desk and think about all the warm fuzzies I get from my community.
But to do this is to ignore a huge trend in popular culture. Women like Oprah, TV networks like the Food Network & HGTV, and books like Eat Pray Love or The Happiness Project are empowering people to get in touch with their inner creativity and take the driver’s seat in their own lives.
People all over America are reinventing themselves. They’re becoming active participants in their health, their families, and their consumption. They’re plugging back into a culture that promises to give as much as it gets.
What are we doing as a creative community to meet these people where they’re at?
They’ve never heard of Etsy. AC Moore & Joann’s might be like foreign lands. Craft shows make them think of crocheted pot holders and plastic flower door wreaths.
We assume people like shopping at Walmart or Target and so don’t offer an alternative. We assume people like showing up at a party wearing the same thing as three other people and so we don’t offer to help them shop for some vintage clothes. We assume people don’t mind having the same coffee table from Ikea as 20,000 other people and so we don’t tell them about the woman down the street who makes coffee tables from recycled wood.
But – could it be that we haven’t done our job to make it easier to buy handmade or independently produced alternatives?
Could it be that the burden is on us to not take the easy way out when shopping with friends and family?
Have we done enough to reach out to the millions of people who don’t know about alternative ways of buying yet?
It’s much much too easy to write off people who don’t understand.
{image credit: beloved bowl by paisleymarie}
PS If you need some help to get moving on this or any other goal, check out my free mini course of creating more action in your life.
Victoria Klein is a freelance writer, photographer + creative dabbler. Her 1st book, 27 Things to Know About Yoga, was released in July 2010. Her 2nd book, 48 Things to Know About Sustainable Living, will be released in October 2010.
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