Right, I agree with the conclusions that you have reached thanks to your experience with sewing. Machines, since their implementation, have always had the consequence of generating oversupplies, which ends up producing overconsumption. That is because that is precisely its strong point, the quantity, after all the machines were created for mass production. At the time of the industrial revolution, when the first machines began to be used, the objects produced in factories by these machines were of poorer quality than the objects produced by, say, a craftsman, who spent more time on it and paid more attention to detail. The only advantage that industrially produced objects had was that they were mass-produced, of lower quality but made in greater quantity, which made them cheap. If they were cheaper, they were more accessible to the population who could save money, or even buy more. These cheap objects ended up taking over the market and putting artisans out of work. In a short time, factories spread throughout Europe beginning the transition to capitalism, whose promise was to make everyone rich thanks to the production of trinkets.

Machines will make work easier with the goal of increasing production, but I am of the belief that if you want something genuinely of quality, you have to look for something that is not done in an automated way.

This should bring us to the question of how much of our own clothing we actually need over our lifetime, and the answer would be: as little as possible.

I like to ask myself that question but in general, how many things that we have do we really need during our lifetime? I think we would be surprised to find out that the answer is, just like yours: very little.

People can have very simple lives and be happy, actually, we don't need too much, but I think most of the time we fall into a kind of illusion when we see the new objects, the new clothes, the new shoes, the new phone, and we end up buying a lot of things that we don't need, that don't make us happier, and that we'll eventually end up throwing away. It is a trap. And it is likely that this comfort-inclined lifestyle takes us precisely to the opposite place we want to go, leaving us, as I said in the post, less free, less independent, less happy, etc.

Maybe you are right, nobody likes to feel useless, that seems a good answer, but I think that it is never too late to learn, and more considering where the other option leads. I think the only reason we decide to settle is because we don't see that the effort is worth the benefits, but usually the benefits are greater than we can see.

Thanks for stopping by and for the thoughtful comment. Cheers!