I'm trying to cultivate an awareness of privilege. It's like
cultivating an attitude of gratitude, a very overused and trite phrase (or has
it become trite due to overuse?). At any rate, it occurred to me recently how
privileged I am. Sometimes, I think we associate that word with Beverly Hills
housewives, or wealthy white men in suits looking down their old noses at us
from the cover of Forbes. But really, if you look at the world in general, I
have a very privileged life.
If I want to download a book to read on my ipad, click,
I have it. I stopped working one day a week because it stressed me out, so now
I work four days. I can turn up the thermostat if I want, although if B is
home, he might complain about being too hot—but not about the money it costs to
keep me cozy. I have a cabinet with three shelves, loaded with tea and coffee
products. I have a table that has no use except to hold my seasonal decorations
and—another sign of privilege—our Bose sound dock.
We have a brand new kitchen. And not a cheap one—it's got
quartz countertops and a pull-down faucet and soft-close drawers and sliding
drawers and a heavy-duty lazy Susan, which we use for all of our pots.
Still, I complain about what I haven't got, what I want and
can't have right now, and about other things: I'm lucky to have a job, when so
many don't, and yet the clients irritate the shit out of me. I adore my
animals, but sometimes, I just don't want to deal with them. I have sneakers
without holes in the bottom, but I want new ones.
Buddhism is letting go of "want." Maybe not at its
core, but that's a tenet. In some ways, so is Christianity—let go of
"want," and the Lord provides. A financial counselor on Oprah used to
advise that we cultivate a mindset in which we already have everything we need.
Which we do, on a fundamental level (many don't, I realize, but for the
majority, and certainly myself, we do).
It seems small, this writing of things I have, and even
smaller, the list of things I want. Not the lists themselves, for they are
almost endless. But what do I really want? Would I like a childhood do-over, in
which my mother never dies? Do I want my beloved grandparents, her parents, to
still be here? It's only been a few years since losing them, and I think of
them often, and miss them. Do I wish for my favorite dog back, the one creature
so devoted to me that I found that I had never understood the word
"devotion" before—and probably have already lost its meaning, lost to
the tide of "want."
Our souls are so small. Some say they are vast, that they
are the universe itself. I feel that that is correct, and yet, the universe is
so small. Everything is so tiny, it fits in a marble in my hand—that's how it
feels.
And perhaps this is depression talking now, reducing things,
because joy and the largeness of that joy are its opposite.
I cannot understand the size of my want or the solidity of
my soul, and I cannot tell sometimes sadness and grief from love and love and
more love. So this is all I can do today: make a list of what I have, and try
not to think of what I want and do not have. And I have two hands to write
this, and a computer to write it on, and dogs snoring next to me, and hot tea
(although, bleh, I bought it and this one's not so good—see how I go, all the
time? with the complaining?). It's an exercise, much like just living every day
is. And exercise. At which I will, apparently, never become proficient. I'll
drown the want of my desire to be a great writer in another document, and
today, in just this minute, I will try to be satisfied. And grateful.
