011: PRIVILEGE

Maybe you have been able to read it between the lines in earlier episodes. In any case, it's time for me to face it head on, and talk about it. So that I can meet the shadow sides, that I feel knocking on my shoulder. But also, so that I can, hopefully, land in a space where I allow myself to appreciate the beauty of it. Of...

All
My
Privilege.

I have come to realize, that in a way, this is what makes me feel the most ashamed. My privilege is one of my biggest shadows. I've felt ashamed of simply existing, because I've known I've had many privileges that others haven't.

I feel uncomfortable to step into this discussion. And I guess, that's exactly why I need to talk about it. But it feels like stepping into a minefield. I notice sides of me that angrily want to shut me up, telling me that I have no right to whine about my experience, exactly because others have it much tougher, in many ways. And talking about my pattern of feeling unwanted (in the last episode), brought up a voice in me that said: “what right do you have to complain about your pain or feeling unwanted, when you were still in a situation where the adults were trying to help? When you’ve grown up being loved by your parents? When others have experienced far worse?” These are some of thevoices, the shadows, that I need to bring into this conversation. And they are a big reason for why I need to talk about this.

I think that the thing that creates an experience of privilege or lack, is the way that we are all different, and we start our lives from very different starting points. Without differences, we couldn't consider anyone to be more or less fortunate than the other. And we learn to compare each other, compare to each other, and to notice these differences from quite an early age. At least that was my experience.

But on top of this, we are living in a paradoxical existence of all being different, yet societal pressures making us strive for similarity, or homogenization. Meaning, there is an ideal that our differences should be minimized so that we would all fit better together, somehow. Or fit into the mold. At the same time, the colonial or capitalistic way of life has been built on a system of severe inequalities. So while there is an ideal of similarity on the surface level, below it, there is actually a need to keep people in different positions. People are sharing a world, let's call it a playground. We are taking part on this game of life, in our own ways. But we are playing by different rules, partly depending on the circumstances we had when we started out.

I feel a need to bring this matter up, and to step out into a broader perspective for a moment, to acknowledge the world that exists beyond my personal sphere, but that I am also a part of.

But I can’t speak for a whole system or the whole world, and I don't feel that I'm qualified to engage in a deeper societal analysis. So in this episode I will mainly focus on sharing my own individual experience, of existing in this world.

The difficulty in sharing about this experience is that every time I try to express anything from my vantage point, I cringe. It is like I have a little devil on my shoulder telling me I don't deserve to talk, because I'm not the so called victim of this situation. But does that then make me the bad guy? I didn't choose my starting point any more than anyone else. Or did I? I don't know. At least I don’t remember...

I am past the point of thinking that anyone deserves the spotlight any more or less than anyone else, whether they have some privilege or not. I believe there is more value in sharing our experiences with each other and trying to understand different sides or nuances, than in simply pointing fingers at others (or ourselves).

I exist and I seem to have a need to express these things, so I will now do my own part and share some stories from my perspective. From my life.

Maybe it will be annoying for some. Maybe relatable for someone else. Both of those reactions are valid.

I noticed it sometime in my childhood: that I had access to some things, and opportunities, that other friends didn't have.

I attended piano lessons, while my friend's parents could no longer afford to pay for hers. Even though she loved it. She loved to play too.

I never had a summer job. I would have liked to. But I didn't need to. Other friends had summer jobs or side jobs, and I remember, it gave them a certain shine, and I admired them for it. They were more self-sufficient than me. Independent. Because they needed to be.

I remember our school got a girl who was from Albania. I remember being told that I had to be especially kind to her, and play with her so she would feel welcome. And I did, I tried, but our personalities clashed. She wanted to boss me around. And I didn't like it. Then her family moved to another city, and that was that. I felt ashamed for feeling relieved that I didn’t need to play with her anymore. I felt like I should have liked her, because she was in a less fortunate situation. But I didn't.

In my northern European country, higher education is free, and you can even get a bit of suppprt money when you study. I also took student loans on top of that, and didn't need to work while I studied. This makes me feel very privileged when compared to, well, most others. At least, anyone who wants to study but can't afford it, or don't even have the opportunity. And also, compared to my classmates who needed to work on the side, or in the summers.

As a child, I had parents who would help me with the homework if I wanted to. Another side of the coin is that I sometimes felt very stressed and pressured into making the best of all the opportunities I had. In my teens I experienced my first panic attacks from being so overwhelmed by all my studies, hobbies and activities.

But I also appreciate that I was challenged, and it has helped me to grow.

I have received financial and emotional support throughout my life from my family.

But I feel that the most precious privilege that I have, is the privilege of knowing love. Despite our tensions, and the turbulence of my teenage years, deep down, I always knew that I was loved. I have still gone through pain in my life. But through it all, I've felt that, I’ve had that, love with me, at the core of my being. And I believe that that is the greatest gift any parents can give their child.

In addition to this love, my mother helped instill me with the feeling that the world is carrying me, like a benevolent large being that I’m connected to, and that I'm supported no matter what. And thanks to her, family, and various people that have been there through the tough times, I truly have been supported, throughout my life.

At times, all this support made me feel deeply ashamed. I compared my situation to others who didn’t have that type of support and felt that I was spoiled. A spoiled brat. And despite all this privilege, I was not always so good at receiving. Perhaps partly due to these ideals of self-sufficiency and independence in my culture, I've gone through times when I tried to carry it all, I wouldn't accept help. I would push through life on my own, by force.

One question that often comes up for me as I consider the notion of privilege is "Why me?" this is a question that can be asked when being hit by a misfortune, but it is also a question I've asked myself, when something good happens or I receive heartfelt support, again and again.

Why me?
Why should I deserve this?
Shouldn't it go to someone else, someone more deserving?

At times I couldn't ask for help, or even accept help when it was freely given, because I was telling myself that I needed to struggle, because other people were struggling too. I saw myself through my own projected view of how someone less privileged would see me: like a pampered little princess, born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Looking back, I think that I might have conjured and called in more struggles and drama in my life than perhaps was necessary, because of the subconscious idea that it would make me more relatable or help me relate to the struggles of others, and that by that, I would be a better person. Because I also struggled. At those times I might have still complained about the turbulence in my life. But secretly there was also a side in me that was savoring it. Enjoying it. A side in me that felt that this meant that I was alive.

(sigh)

But in the end, a particular high, or low point, came a year and a half ago now, in my postpartum exhaustion. I felt like I was done with the side of me that went chasing storms, or even making storms. I wanted to, and desperately needed to, find balance in myself. And I finally just needed to accept support. The support that was already there. That I had not been able to receive. Because I first needed to allow myself to receive.

I started thinking that the most privileged act is actually to deny the privilege that you have. To not appreciate it. To not even accept it. Who am I to turn away help and support? There is a difference between feeling uncomfortable about your privilege and in trying to delete that difference. Me denying my own privileges doesn't make me a better person, but rather, a more stupid one. Because, if I accept and receive the support I’m given, I could also do much more to help others. I would be more resourced to help share resources. Share support to others too.

Instead of throwing myself into the sea, to join the struggle in the waves because I see others drowning, it does make more sense to stay sitting on my cliff, and try to help people up from there. People who want to be helped. But here, I feel that I enter into the theme of saviorism, which I have also experienced inmy life. On the one hand, I understand how this behavior can bring it's own issues, particularly if the savior behavior is built on ignorance of the true issues that people face, or if it’s based on a subconscious need to raise your own sense of self-worth by helping others. But on the other hand, it feels only natural that we would want to live in a world where we can help each other and share what resources we have.

This vision is what my idealistic mind feels drawn to, anyway.

Through my own experience, I can confirm that privilege does not correspond with a high sense of self, with a high self-worth, and I think it is quite normal that savior behavior is connected to an inner need of proving that you are a good person. That you deserve to exist. While a sense of self-worth does get a boost by living a life aligned with your values, I believe that the sense of your worth also comes from somewhere else than the outside. From inside. It is not only connected to how well we behave in our own eyes, and others eyes, but also connected to, how well we are able to take care of ourselves or be taken care of, when we can’t behave well. Self-worth is basically, the feeling that you are worth the care, or worth the attention, or simply that you are worth to exist.

When I was working as a house cleaner I felt quite proud of myself. Of making my own money, for the first time in my life, even if it was below minimum wage. My own money, that I made, doing hard work.

Of course, this is connected to the ideals that were reflected to me in the society.

But I also enjoyed that work, I must admit, because I got to experience a very different type of a life. I got to be a person that took part in “the struggle”. And I experienced some people looking down on me, because I worked as a cleaner. And I did experience my sense of worth being shaken from the outside. But it was strengthened from the inside, in me.

I now see, that, by working that job, I tried to break out of my privilege and experiment with a different way of life. I wanted to make my own luck, instead of just receiving support. And there is beauty in this too.

But it also felt like I was, somehow, playing a role that was slightly detached from my life. Like I stepped into a parallel life, a parallell track. Somewhere totally different than where my life was supposed to go. There’s a word for this, I guess. Guess you could call it "slumming". I enjoyed it, because I could finally relate to that tough life that all the rappers I listened to were so angrily talking about. I felt like I was finally a part of that community. The “working class heroes”. Except that I was fake. It wasn't really my place. And I quit cleaning after 8 months. Because I could. I had the opportunity. The privilege. I didn't actually need that money. I was able to do something else. So I did.

(sigh)

In contrast to the cleaning, when I was working as a university lecturer I felt like I was at home. This was the world I knew, the type of people I had seen, having grown up in an academic household.

But in my particular university department there were other types of people too. People who didn't fit into the typical mold of an academic. And this helped me to realize that maybe I could be one too. Someone who just was who they was and did what they did. An academic who could attend death metal concerts in their free time.

We're all so different, but no matter the starting point, there are endless configurations to the way we go through life. The outer appearance of a person, like a job title, only shows a fraction. At least to some extent, we all have some space to choose how we express ourselves and what we do with that life. Of course, I want to acknowledge the restrictions that many people come with. But I want to also question the typical way we perceive privilege and add some nuance to the polar opposites, the black and white sides that keep being painted, and that I also placed myself in.

What if that other person, with another starting point, experiences something that I am restricted from experiencing, precisely because of my, privileged starting point? Sounds obvious, but it feels like a taboo to say it out loud. To say that I don’t want to assign value. That different starting points are simply different.

By now, I am starting to feel fed up with this word. Privilege. Because it automatically creates a comparison to another. It creates “The Other”. If I describe myself as privileged, it feels like I am automatically describing someone who is simply different from me, or who had a different starting point, as less privileged. And of course, I think there is a need for these comparisons, but there is also the risk that it pushes us into a place where we are only seeing what separates us, instead of focusing on what we share.

Our humanity. Our life.

We are all sparks of life, experiencing it from different- from our own unique perspectives. And I have come to believe that we are all connected, on a deeper soul level, no matter how different we may appear in the outer world.

And on my path towards accepting, and appreciating the unique starting point that I had, and the way support shows up in my life, I have needed to reframe the word privilege as my treasures, or as gifts.

And those gifts can come in many different forms. If I can call it gifts or treasures, I can also treasure my life more easily.

In my culture, there is a saying that the person who has happiness or luck should hide it. Kel onni on, se onnen kätkeköön. (It’s a Finnish saying I grew up with.) I understand the value of this, as it encourages a humble approach to life, and not to show off. But if we have to only hide our luck from others, that also means that we can't share it.

And I believe that each and everyone has some treasures to share, whatever shape they take.

The treasures and the challenges we start out with give us our own unique starting points. And even though the quality and amount of those treasures and challenges differ between us, we are all connected by the way that we all have them. We all have something, and we all have our own lives to live.

So who can decide what life is best? Or the most privileged? And what perspective is most deserving to be heard?

What use is it to compare?

Well, now that devil, or shadow, is back on my shoulder, whispering: "that's easy for you to say, you who experienced such support in your life."

And yes. Perhaps it is more easy for me to say than for someone else. It is unavoidable that what I have to say will be filtered through my own, supported perspective. And that what I say will be easy for me to say. That is why I am the one saying it.

And there is a place for this too. For what I have to say.

I cannot really speak from any other place than from my own experience and my own perspective.

I can listen, and take in, and try to understand other experiences and perspectives. But ultimately, what I take in will also be filtered through me, how I perceive what I take in.

My own perspective is simply, the only thing I have to work with. It is the lens that I am locked into, in this life.

And in the end, how anyone else would judge it, really doesn't matter.

I still have to live my life.

My life is still mine to live.

I can have many feelings about that. Even resentment. Or shame.

But it is far more fun to just enjoy the ride.
My life is a treasure, a gift, that I didn't ask for. And yes, maybe that is easy for me to say.

But it has not always been so easy to say.

And now, when I am in a place where I can actually finally say it, I will.

I don't know how I got here or why, but
I have this life.
So I might as well enjoy it.

And you know what?

You can enjoy your life too,
if you want to.