I dare not stop hitting myself.

[grinninfoole]

I was driving home from Andover today, en route to an appointment with an eye doctor (I need progressive lenses), and ruminating as I do, when it struck me that I'm a hypocrite. It's one of my bedrock principles that everyone matters, and yet so much of my life is shaped by a sense that I don't. Part of that is depression, of course, but I think my efforts to mind my privilege also contribute. I was having supper with Morlock, and talking about this, and I put it something like this:

1) The world lies to people all the time. Mostly, it's telling them they're worthless, and this message is especially loud for women, LGBTQ, POC, the mentally ill, and the poor. It's a constant barrage of advertising, movies, kids at school, pundits, cops, etc. ad nauseam.

2) The world lies to me, too. They're just different lies: that I'm important, that I'm powerful, that the world feels my pain, that I'm justified in acting out when angry or sad or amorous or whatever, and that I'm an authoritative and respectable person to be given all due deference. I spend time and energy undercutting these messages in my head. I know from painful experience how ugly I can be when I don't.

3) When surrounded by flattery, it's difficult to truly grasp one's strengths. Am I actually learned, or insightful, or eloquent, or compassionate, or generous? I hope to be. I strive to be. I might be. I dare not be too confident, though, lest in resting on my laurels I let my virtues ooze away.

I think I already posted about this before, but I think maybe a new course of action will be to seek out some new community for support. I have two ideas: one, find/form a support group for privilege awareness; two, start going to Quaker meetings. The sect has the most impressive human rights track record of any group in history, and they're just the sort of church an atheist like me could feel comfortable in.

Comments

[millari.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you have come to a conclusion like this. Not to be all "I told you so",but I have in many ways after you for years to believe that you matter. You have this weird balance of privilege/not privilege that I think comes from being aware of it, but not being entirely comfortable with it.

Truth be told, pretty much all our friends come from some kind of privilege other, so don't beat yourself up that you're all that special in this department, btw. You just happen to have hit a trifecta of privilege because of the white, male, educated, rich thing. But I think it would possibly be good for you to be able to talk to someone about this feeling. The Quakers are an interesting choice. Do they even talk about God? I also think you would really benefit at this point in your life from having a community around you that expected you to show up regularly and also took care of you as much as you would take care of them.