Coffee Shop Philosophy

I had a good chat with Arvin today about privilege. We got on the subject after hearing a friend of mine worrying about Meaning. As in, a summer waiting tables in Crested Butte is Meaningless— a waypoint on the way to a significant, Meaningful life. I didn't bring up my whole Buddhistish life-is-meaningless-so-chill-the-fuck-out-and-enjoy-yourself thing because the conversation usually ends pretty quickly at the impasse of "Well, if you think everything is meaningless, then why even bother doing anything that you don't absolutely have to?"

This got me thinking about privilege. 

Not just my specific middle class American white male privilege, but privilege as a condition, as a state of being. I've been told to "check my privilege"*, mostly by equally privileged people trying to live more righteously. For the most part the idea hadn't really nestled into my consciousness. Today, however, I had an interesting thought while trying to explain this sentiment to Arvin (who's parents are Indian, was born in Trinidad & Tobago, and grew up in Miami).

If I think of my privilege as a negative condition— as a benign illness— then I can either ignore it and let the symptoms get worse, or acknowledge it and treat it. I used the word "commit" while talking to Arvin, when I really meant "embrace". If I embrace something, I'm accepting it fully for good or ill and taking responsibility for my relationship to it.** It's one thing to be privileged, it's another to deny it. A personal (and weird, I know) example that came to mind earlier: I have a favorite brand of condom that I buy on the internet because they're hard to find in stores. I am privileged to be culturally educated about safe sex, have access to any contraceptives at all, and have the internet as a resource. How much of a dick would I be if I felt inconvenienced by the "inaccessibility" of a specific brand in the face of past and present STI epidemics and population control problems. 

So. I embrace my privilege not to be a pretentious asshole, but to avoid the trap of pretending like it isn't there and becoming an even bigger asshole. I am blessed to be able to "waist" a summer in Crested Butte. I'm not going to drop this to go join the Peace Corp and neither are you, but the worst thing I can do is act like I deserve better.

*The phrase "check your privilege" turns out 150,000 results on Google. "Don't do drugs" turns out 3 million, "live the American dream" 4.3 million.

**Buddhist idea of acceptance: I embrace my distaste for spicy food. I cannot blame green chiles for being spicy and thus offensive. I am offended by the taste of chiles. They do not offend me. If I take responsibility for my relationship to spicy food, I no longer need to view the chiles themselves as "bad". One less thing to hate. Try it on something that pissed you off today. Was it the thing, or how you felt about the thing that pissed you off?