At large
It is freedom weekend in this part of the world. We make an impromptu lunch plan, and use the metro. Then go to a mall for bubble tea, our new comfort drink. There is something metaphorical about that – our bubble inside a messy reality. I noticed that at the restaurant, on the roads, in the mall, there weren’t a lot of smiling people. I reflect that maybe it’s a sign of the times. After all, if you go by social media, everyone else is doing better.
And it isn’t just online, it’s a reality too.I think specifically about the service staff in the restaurant, security guards at the metro station. They are working on a day when everyone else has the day off. Waking up early, going back late. They are living lives of precarity, something I read in Eula Biss’ Having and Being Had.
“…depending on the will or pleasure of another was the original meaning of precarious, and that it comes from the Latin for prayer. Precarity is everywhere, it seems. Maybe it is, as Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing writes, the condition of our time. It is also the defining feature of an entire class of people, the precariat.
Illness or disability can force somebody into the precariat as can divorce, war, or natural disaster. The precariat is composed of migrant workers and temp workers and contract workers, and part-time workers. People who work unstable jobs that offer “no sense of career.” There are few opportunities to advance in these jobs, and no way to bargain for better terms.
But when they do smile, it makes a difference, like the girl at the bubble tea cafe. Next time I go, if she is around, I will get her name, and add it in my Google review. Chances are she won’t be around any more. That’s how it goes for the precariat, they’re free punching bags for the rest of us.
Near…
Our cook has now been with us for nearly a decade. She had come to work too, in the morning. She never smiles. Her daughter took her own life sometime back. Her husband, since then, has been an alcoholic, had a stroke, and is more of a liability than anything else. Her son married up and is practically estranged. When I get angry with her for some reason, one of the tricks I use to control my words/actions is ask myself “what does she have to look forward to in life?” There is no lottery that can change her life, and only one path that can give her freedom. Can I even imagine that plight for myself?
When I have thoughts like these, I console myself that just as people richer than me can wonder how I am happy without owning something as ‘common’ as a fancy car or a villa, maybe she is happy in her own way too. Next year, I told D, we will give her the day off.
… and dear
I borrowed a nickname that S had used for a while, and pinned it on a friend’s wife – Chechi Guevara. She doesn’t complicate things like I do – if someone asks for her help, she just gives it. Her question is “how can we not help?” That clarity is also freedom. I still haven’t given up hope for myself, but I also recognise that I am far too selfish about our comforts, and led by scarcity mindset for any radical change.
Another reason is that my rational mind tells me these are like Crocin for cancer. I cannot find any incentives for this divergence of privilege to ever cease. Each new wave of tech only exacerbates it. Maybe that’s an excuse I make up for myself because otherwise, the pain is overwhelming.
Me
In Freedom at Midnight, a book I recently read (and really liked), the authors mention how Lord Mountbatten chose August 15 as the date for the transfer of power on the fly, in response to a journalist’s query, because that date had a personal significance. As Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia during World War 2, the date was the triumphant end of his campaign – Japan’s surrender.
It made me think of something seemingly unrelated – “Prompt Theory” by @HashemGhaili – in which AI-generated characters refuse to believe that they are AI-generated. (video below) What’s the connection? Free will, and our choices and actions.
After all, when you think of it, all of our thoughts and behaviour are based on prompts – nature, nurture, memories, experiences, associations (like Mountbatten’s), emotions, expectations, wishes and desires, fears and frustrations, and so on. It’s just that we mostly don’t look at them closely enough. And they are not expressed in words or even sometimes thoughts, but through neurons and hormones.
Maybe, freedom is just being able to understand our prompts, and to use it to be better.
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