The Style Vs. The Fashion

The Style Vs. The Fashion

By: Filmon Mihreteab

If there was any idea that tested and troubled my mind for the longest part of my life, it was the question of identifying me, with all clarity, as either an individual person or the ownership of the collective. Whenever I tend to follow a particular style of life and try to settle in my core being, that very tendency breeds, in the attitude of others, imminent and hostile reaction against me. And whenever I tend to compromise my personal ends and devote myself to the pleasure of others that very tendency as well, becomes the point from where my life starts to lose its live energy. Worst part of the latter option is the fact that my life becomes attractive neither to me nor to the others who were supposed to be advantaged by the move.

Happiness is measured neither by living to please others nor by opting to live as slaves to one’s own individual whims. A person who can no longer love himself and follow his dreams is incapable of generating feelings of love for others. Some one who is enslaved to providing life to others, similarly, ends up incapable of providing life neither to them nor to one. A tendency to pursue just individual dreams and shutting others out of your life bears no fruit, either. The very insensitivity that you show towards others becomes the source of hostile reaction against you from the others and this very development gets in the way of you enjoying your individual actions.

In fact, parts of the factors without which our individual satisfaction is incomplete, are, by default, properties of others. Especially in this modern world, where labor is divided indefinitely and our demands are multiplied correspondingly, dependence on others has become a force from which it is not possible to escape. Since there is a ride that society gives an individual for free, like security, relationship, peace, warmth, pride and strength, the society, on its part, has a service expected to be contributed from individual members. More over, when we tend to limit ourselves within the box of our own individuality, we fail to see the reason behind constructive efforts to others and can generate in us feelings of animosity and conflict against them.

There is no wrong in individuals tending to feed their own individual talents and demands. Talents of individuals should always be valued. However, talents naturally become worthless when they don’t become of some value to others. For instance, some people have a sharp talent for stealing but since their talents can only harm and not help others, they end up in jail and become victims of their own talents. One is always respected by others on how well one observes the values of them.

People of style tend to give more value to what is inherently theirs. On the contrary, there are people who are easily carried-on by developments that change around them and adjust themselves with the shifting winds of fashion. Style and fashion are two separate orientations of life that are expressed in us by the way we dress our clothes, the way we talk to others and explain our ideas and the way we act in every day’s activities of our life. However, the very inspiration of wearing stylish or fashionable appearance is basically stimulated from natural traits.

Being stylish or fashionable is the external appearance of a particular mind-set of people. Stylish mind is one that has inclination towards the individual person and fashionable mind is a different mind-set with a tendency towards the collective. Whenever emphasis is applied in to one side of these contrasting mind- sets as a principle of life, the very act becomes an inevitable reason in isolating us from a balanced stance. And straying out of balance leads a person to extreme sides and inevitably multiplies conflicts against one.

There are people who firmly advocate for stylish orientation of life and try to prescribe it to all individuals claiming the stylish orientation as is in the root of a colored life and thus colors are the spices of life. But, still, important questions remain unanswered; is it possible to form a collective body while every one is greedily taking absolute care of only one’s drives? Do we really support ourselves capable and answer our life demands satisfactorily without relying on a collective supplies and strengths? Are we able to assure security to freely exercise our individual freedom without a favorable environment created, in the first place, by the existence of a collective body? Several more questions can still be raised.

Yes, styles when expressed in the form of unique works are important to the life of the individual and the collective. Style becomes a source of danger when it is blindly and narrowly followed for individual’s selfish motives. An individual who resorted to blindly follow his own style of living may find friends, from the other side of the hemisphere, to whom he likes better than his own family members and tend to forget all investments made to his upbringing. He can find citizens of other countries who are more admirable than his own people and may tend to opt for a living on the greener pasture at the yonder. He may watch out around and find a prettier woman than his own wife and end up divorcing the former and connecting with the new one. At the end of the day one’s style can lead to an intention of forgetting one’s own people, family and culture and can become the bomb with the potential to destroy the fundamental fabrics of the society the very person is rooted into.

I doubt it when people claim that everybody is born unique. Yes, individuals may contain in their very being elements of uniqueness but can never be absolutely born without some kind of attachment with other people and the external forces around them. Man is rather the miniature of everybody else; probably all the universe. The very first minute we are delivered as infants into the world, we come with certain image of semblance to a person and not an animal and this is an indication that we have influences of mankind. And a closer look on to the face of a newly born baby does show us traces of looks and manners inherited from parents and grandparents.

There are even some wise men who try to link behaviors of people to heavenly bodies that are unimaginably situated far from where we are. And after children come to the world, there is some time of their age that they are obliged to stay under strict control of their parents and the neighborhood. They grow in particularly influencing geographical and cultural environments and have no chance to escape from environmental influences. I am not straying myself into philosophy for the sake of philosophizing but rather trying to show the back ground as to why it is impossible for someone to claim of themselves as totally unique and thus are justified to exclusively pursue their personal ends here on earth. Nevertheless, the idea is not intended to weaken an individual in favor of the collective. When individual qualities, talents and skills are compromised, the society itself remains with no source from which to draw its collective strength. A collective borrows its strength that is essential to defend alien challenges, from two fundamental sources; strong individual members and the bond the members could create among them. One of the two sources is compromised means life falls apart both for the individuals and the institution formed out of them.

Any act of an individual which is slightly outside the accepted order or norms, never fails to attract attention and acts of style are no different. Acts of style get some people irritated and make others happy. People in certain works of style do always become subjects of heated debate among people. There is one Eritrean young singer who is, most of the times, the topic of discussion among our group. By his stylish orientation of life, without even his knowledge, he bisects our group into two. Some of us denounce him thinking of him confusing his works to an alien influences and blaming him as someone who has forgotten his roots by failing to adhere to the values of his own society. Some of us, on the other hand, admire his mental strength to resist limiting traditions and striving to add his own contributions in leading the society towards modernism.

We came to this world with out our choices. Yet, we are left with certain freedom to exercise it on our own capacity. Whereas our kinsmen are chosen for us and our friends are our own choices, for instance. Thus, all along our past life we have come under this unchanging principle of partial freedom. There are always the natural plan and the societal plan silently working in us and fighting to guide our life in their ways.

The natural plan is our style and the societal plan is our fashion. Our style is the path that we choose to travel by and the fashion is the path that is determined for us by the society. And we live a life of constant struggle between guarding our individual styles and seeking the advantages of the smooth manners and secure the context created by the collective. Such conflicts are ever manifested between teachers who require students to dress uniformly and students who resist to dressing in uniforms, between parents who try to inculcate familial manners and their children who defy traditional practices and favor their individual priorities, and between people who want to equip themselves and others with smooth cultural manners and those people who favor for modern alien influences. Thus, it sounds like it is extreme thinking that do always draw people to dangerous margins and is more advisable for us to follow the middle ground.

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