Today’s question: What sort of things, outside of fashion, do you consider a part of the Mori lifestyle?

If you couldn’t tell already, I’m really into the idea of a dark Mori lifestyle. For me, and probably a lot of alternative types, fashion grows out of lifestyle. I know most goths think this way–people who love dressing goth but have no interest in goth music are considered really weird. Coming from that perspective, I like dark Mori fashion because of the lifestyle it represents even more than I like the specific outfits.

In the biggest, most abstract terms, both goth and Mori are just quick words that capture a bunch of my interests and attitudes toward life. Calling myself goth or gothic not only tells people what music I like, but it helps people understand my dark humor and the fascination with the more dark and strange side of life. Mori captures another side of me that is introspective and romantic and surprisingly traditional.

Specifically, reading has always been an escape for me and I love old literature and history. I also love knitting, crochet, cross stitch, cooking dinner, celebrating holidays, and a lot of other very “old fashioned” things. I don’t think the old days and old ways were better than what we have now. I have no illusions about the poverty, disease, and injustices of the past. But I think in our rush to fix those things we lose a lot of good, nourishing things as well and I think that’s a mistake. When I see Mori slowing down and looking toward the past, I see it working to value and preserve the good parts and learning from even the bad parts.

I used to misunderstand stuff like this. I used to look down a bit on Renaissance clubs and Civil War re-enactment and Victorian enthusiasts because they’d ignore all the bad parts of the eras they loved. Nobody in the Renaissance club pretended to be a peasant, or pretended to have lice or syphilis the way so many people did back then. No one dressed up like a poor Victorian chimney sweep or match girl. In high school, I thought I was smart for seeing that, and at some point I realized I was the dumb one. As I’ve matured, instead of thinking people were blind for focusing on the good, I’ve decided combining the good from the past with the good of today is probably the wisest way to live.

But I feel like I’m being way too abstract and maybe reading way too much into this. It’s just the way my brain works.