The Chicken Lays Her First Eggs
January 30 — Feb 3, Hunenberg, Switzerland
Seasonal Memoir #54
Living in this beautiful country, where you can rely on things working as designed, and where you can expect things to be pleasant (even the smell of the farms are all part of the Swiss agriculture’s eau de toilette), you can lose empathy over the fact that this is not the real world (at least for 99% of the world). Only a year ago we were living in Dubai, where smoke and mirrors cannot cover all the class and social inequities.
With a little bit of reflection, here are a sample of flat out luxuries I enjoy as a white heterosexual male (what Peggy McIntosh would call “unearned over-privileges”):
- Privacy, mostly when I want it
- Quiet, especially while sleeping
- Fresh, reinvigorating air
- Self-reliance
- Individualism, in the form of being able to focus on myself
- Autonomy over one’s time, for the most part
- Daily exercise not associated with work
- Freedom to dress and look as I wish (even slovenly)
- Access to healthy food choices
- Freedom of movement for where I want to go
- Not having to answer for my ethnicity or gender when I make a mistake
My wife, as my partner who does the lion’s share domestically, even though she’s a health care professional, would add that I further enjoy due to my interdependence on her:
- Food always in the fridge
- Dishes clean and put away
- Clothes washed, dried, and folded
- Not living in dust and filth
Finally, anyone in the developing world at or under the poverty line would add the following luxuries that they cannot enjoy:
- Dignity
- Basic healthcare (where anything catastrophic may be life ending)
- Dairy products
- Meat of all sorts
- Public or private transportation (anything other than one’s own two feet)
- Sustained electricity, much less internet access
- Reasonable safety and freedom from violence
- A bed of your own
- In many cases, access to a toilet
I read the phrase “accident of birth” the other day, and it stuck with me. When we come into this world, we don’t get the chance to choose status, wealth, or privilege, but we can make a conscious choice whether to cash in on these, which will often come at the expense of others. So what can I do about it? For one, I can lift people up through inclusion (literally, or simply sharing knowledge of “how things work here”). I can reject obvious bastions of privilege (as I once did with an elitist organization of private school heads). I can be mindful of the language I use (acting as if my experience is “normal”). I can be aware if I’m wearing privilege by how I act (inadvertently making others feel bad). And let’s not underestimate the impact of simply being kind toward others.
