"A Habit of Waste"

These are the latitudes of the ex-colonised,
of degradation still unmollified,
imported managers, styles in art,
second-hand subsistence of the spirit,
the habit of waste,
mayhem committed on the personality,
and everywhere the wrecked or scuttled mind.
Scholars, more brilliant than I could hope to be,
advised that if I valued poetry,
I should eschew all sociology.

Slade Hopkinson, from
'The Madwoman of Papine: Two Cartoons with Captions'


In the prefatory note of his series of poems, "The Madwoman of Papine" (1976), Slade Hopkinson wrote that the poems, especially the title poem, represent "the effects of society on the individual psyche" (from Anglophone Caribbean poetry, 1970-2001 by Emily Allen Williams).


By beginning the story, "A Habit of Waste," by the poem, it seems as though Nalo Hopkinson is trying to imply the same idea about the effects of society, or "sociology," on the individual. 


By reading "A Habit of Waste," I really came to question the idea of individuality and what it really means to be an individual. As Slade Hopkinson writes at the end of his poem, 

Scholars, more brilliant than I could hope to be,

advised that if I valued poetry,

I should eschew all sociology.

He seems to be implying the fact that high forms of art and writing tend to value the aesthetics more than content. In other words, Hopkinson, as a poet, addresses the fact that he feels discouraged to reference to the problematic aspects society and reality when writing a poem, what is supposed to be an aesthetically pleasing form of writing.

Similarly, in "A Habit of Waste," Cynthia and many others living in her society, view their bodies in a limited scope where everything has to be beautiful. They keep perfecting and changing their bodies to fit what they believe as the ideal images of their bodies.

However, this is where I came to question, "Then what about the individual and individuality?" Going back to the poem, shouldn't forms of art be ways in which one could express his or herself? Similarly, shouldn't one's unique physical characteristics be ways to express an individual identity? If poems "eschew[ed] all sociology" and if people altered their bodies, would that really bring individual satisfaction?

Upon asking myself this question, I also ran into another one. Say that one changes his or her body to gain individual satisfaction through other people's admirations. But is that true individual satisfaction? Wouldn't a true form of individual satisfaction be when one is happy with his or her original body? What he or she began as?

Personally, I believe the true beauty resides in imperfections. Art is more beautiful because it's not always perfect; the small flaws show history, styles, and trends of the era and the artist. Similarly, imperfections in physical characteristics are beautiful. An old woman's wrinkled face depicts the difficulties she went through in her life and a child's scar might hold a special memory.