PRIVILEGE

Dear X,

Are you a nice person? Okay, are you at least presumably nice? Do you close the tap while brushing your teeth, when you are not using it? Or do you look the other way while walking by a homeless? Do you scroll up scary news of the rape of a minor and don’t care about an ongoing protest? Do you support LGBTQ+ because it’s woke but still laugh if you hear the word ‘gay’? When you meet someone new, do you wonder what’s their caste/community/ethnicity and how much money they make? Do you think your female boss is a bitch? Do you sleep well at night while the rest of the world burns because it’s not your house burning? Are you privileged?

I am not talking about the privilege of food, shelter, safety, education, fashion, etc. I am assuming you have that… I am thinking about the privilege of ‘opportunity’ and the privilege of ‘choice of opportunity’. A lot of times we only have one opportunity in front of us and no other option but to take it. So, given the circumstance, that is your best bet in life and you run towards it as if your life depends on that — job, school, or whatever… However, if you are privileged enough you would have a choice of jobs, schools, vacation or whatever(s) and even if your life doesn’t depend on it, you will live, you will be fine even if you don’t run towards them with all your might. Sure, it could be your cherry on the cake, the delight factor, that one thing that your friends don’t have, and you could show off. But… of course, there’s a ‘but’… what did you think it’s a story without karma? Come on, take a good look in the mirror.

So, I was saying.. But you have to do one of those things in the uncomfortable questions I asked at the beginning. Maybe you don’t even have to do it, you have to agree/pretend/stay neutral about it in front of your boss/colleague or whoever is the stakeholder with the power here that gets you to your delight factor. So would you stay a nice person then? Sacrifice your cherry for what? a righteous belief?

The point is we all know on paper what’s right, it’s not that hard to know, but do you practice it? Since when did we become so entitled in this privilege that we don’t even stop anymore to think the impact of our support to the wrongs, the ones we are so hypocrite about. I understand it’s not like you are selling your soul to the devil in exchange of delight but honey, you ARE giving it on loan, little by little. Since when did we lose the sight of simpler days when our parents once told us ‘what is right’ and ‘what is wrong’ and we obeyed thereafter, like nice little kids. When did we stop being nice?

I keep having this same dream over and over X, I am driving, I hit somebody and I don’t stop to look, thinking to myself who cares? But I do care here, in this moment I do care. I think I need more stories, I live for stories and to know people’s motives, what drives them, their reasons, and their scars. Some would say I have a habit of cutting people out of my life but in my defense, I have already found out their story and they no longer interest me.

‘The intent of speech’ should not be deceiving- my new muse Buddha. Truth is important. I don’t understand. To what end? What will it do?
There’s a day after every night, hope for every burning faith but who cares?
I think its time to go home X. They are turning off the lamps, my coffee is cold and three men on the wall are looking at me weird like I overstayed my welcome. I wonder if they know they are the same person with different expressions.
My first yawn…
‘Love was an earthly bond for Buddha. But I belong to the earth. Lights are turned off. I should go now. May I don’t speak to deceive.’

RW