As an adult, I am saddened by the fact that preschoolers can dress like princesses and not be judged for it and even wear it to school but adults invariably wear normal clothing almost every day. I am not saying that people dress in Halloween-type costumes where they are a character but I am saying that it should become socially acceptable to wear the attire of various ethnicities, degrees of formality, and historical periods in their daily wardrobe. I regularly wear a kilt because it’s fun and I’m Scottish. Well, I’m actually an American mut with a Scottish surname (I’m of mostly English, German, Irish, and Scottish descent) but, in America, that makes me Scottish. I would absolutely love and support every period from Medieval to Edwardian to 1950’s Chic to be common sights on sidewalks and for ethnic costumes from Japanese to Mexican to be, as well.
There is such a wide array of aesthetics available from the world collection across time and space it seems a tragic missed opportunity to forego using them all. And not just in fashion, in architecture and social events. There aren’t many different categories of social event readily available to someone in our culture. It would be a lot more fun that instead of 90% of dances being drunk people at nightclubs that we had 50’s-style sock-hops, Victorian balls, and Medieval harvest fairs. All without alcohol since alcohol makes everything worse and would just melt whatever diversity was had into the same lame raving that we were attempting to surpass. Drunk people end up just wanting trashy loud music and to hit on girls for easy sex and would erode the refined aesthetics. In addition to period and ethnic settings, more adult pretty formal settings, even modern ones, like proms for adults would be a nice addition to the mix.
Also, to sprinkle our language with different dialects and periods of English. To have Elizabethan English spoken alongside Gullah and Scots and Victorian with fake French, Italian, English, high Southern, and Hispanic accents all being normal. In that vein to bring poetry and poetic language back in common parlance, to have platonic and romantic relationships to include physically penned correspondence with the most illustrious and opulent wording and also doing that over electronic communication. If there is anything that would soften and make more civil our online discourses, the expectation of gentle and flowery language would be among the more effective means. Adding that old-timey warmth and sweetness to our every interaction. It would also be regular vocabulary practice for a population that needs it.
As diverse as our society is supposedly becoming, it lacks much diversity in aesthetics. Yes, there are token nooks where one may find some esoteric item belonging to the clades aforementioned but, on the whole, people are homogenous and they eschew diversity and even attack it. Society would be much more fun if people let down their cognitive bias walls that force them to melt into the mundaneness of Tuesdays, T-shirts, and texting and allowed themselves to taste the chronological and global pallet. I do believe if people played more, if they were encouraged to dress up and be silly on a regular basis they would be more loving and kinder people. One of the reasons comedy is among the highest forms is because it is difficult to satire and hate someone at the same time because when one turns one’s opponent into a buffoon, they are no longer a monster. Likewise, when one is dressed like a 1920’s flapper, speaking Shakespearean English, snacking on Ethiopian Injera, and dancing to Bollywood showtunes it is just difficult to take life seriously enough to hate anyone.
In the end, it would be a world at play and in a perpetual state of silliness which is what the world should be. I never want to grow up but I don’t want to be a child or an adolescent in the true sense since the first is ignorant and the second is immature but to do childhood and adolescence like an adult. To party, play, and be pretentious to an epic level. If adults were allowed to play then they would be less miserable. Society doesn’t let adults play and there needs to be a massive movement in favor of adult play. The only time most adults play now is in the context of sex which is boring and by all indications, adults aren’t very creative with regards to sex and mainstream society seems to be against the gushy, poetic, and flowery I’d be into, seeming to consider me socially regressive for wanting it and expecting me to want one of their like five acceptable weird fetishes, three of which are sadistic. Regardless, my old-timey romantic fantasies are far more creative than their medical, torture-based, or truck-driver-like ones. The system needs to be broken and there need be a revolution in adult play and I pray that it happens while I am still young enough to reap the full benefits of it.
The Autistic Resistance 