Dear Jasmine #5: If We Keep Wondering, We Have No Time To Do
"We can’t change the entire world in one sweep, but we can influence our own spheres of interaction and that is enough."
Question #5
Dear Jasmine,
Why do we create elaborate comforting stories in our own heads to justify all the obvious exploitation happening all around us? And how easily do we use these stories to participate in that same exploitation, but the dissonance is strong and reminds us about this not being our fault.
“Look how the construction workers are provided no protective gear, no living wage, inhuman working conditions.” *proceeds to buy an apartment in the same building*
Why is all the comfort rooted in exploitation, and why is exploitation so comforting?
– Sisyphus
Answer #5: If We Keep Wondering, We Have No Time To Do
Dear Sisyphus,
I pondered over your question for many days answering it in this way and that, reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus and writing down in exacting prose why labourer rights are human rights. Then, I abandoned all the responses and dropped them into the proverbial river of time. I was returning home the other night and on my way, I could see large under-construction buildings in the distance. White lights were gleaming from the unfinished floors and I kept thinking of the unknown labourers who work there for a living. Would any of them ever be given a house in these buildings because they have built them? Surely, they deserve it more than anyone else. Would any of the rich people buying these houses have the skill or endurance to construct buildings by hand? I find it hard to imagine such a scenario. It is true that we have come to find comfort in the exploitation of others and we create elaborate stories in our heads to justify them. Why else would the world be this way, Sisyphus?
However, I believe that the answer is very simple and doesn’t warrant an entire column. The answer is that it doesn’t have to be this way. No matter how powerless we might have been made to feel, no matter what injustices have gone by, we are here in the present day to sculpt human society as we want. Our participation in human society by way of agreeing, disagreeing, or being silent on all or any matters that concern us doesn’t go unnoticed. Though it is very easy to believe that we live our lives like an echo into the void, that Camus’ characters propound our actions don’t matter one way or another, the truth is that what we do or don’t do shapes our surroundings, our communities, and therefore, the world we live in. Am I asking all of us to take up arms against injustice? Yes and no. Have you read about “the stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” What we do, repeatedly, always adds up. Always. This is an absolute rule.
The hard part is being consistent. Most people find it hard to consistently show up in shared human spaces and ask for a fairer world. They find it hard to stand up to oppressive customs. In fact, they also find it hard to call out exploitation for what it is. Because what’s the point of it all, really? Make no mistake, I am not suggesting all of us want a fair world. Many of us don’t. Many of us would much rather continue living with more while others have less. In fact, that’s how most people live. Isn’t that what your question is about? How do we explain the umpteen managing communities in societies who sit together and decide that house help and delivery boys cannot take the elevators? Or how do we explain the wealthy, office-going crowd who want a 4-day working week but want their maids to come in 7 days a week and never slip up? How do we explain the hullabaloo around essential workers when we needed them in a pandemic but no reforms for them now that things are stable? How do we explain the active destruction of people’s livelihood and still look the other way? We can’t. But when these things happen, we can spot them and say that they don’t need to exist anymore. We can intervene in our own locus of control and ask for the fairer world we imagine. We can’t change the entire world in one sweep, but we can influence our own spheres of interaction and that is enough. We can consistently use our privilege (if we have privilege, and I know that being a man, you definitely have it) to change the world in small ways. All that stuff about ‘every single drop makes an ocean’ is so maddeningly true that it knocks the starlights out of me. Every single drop does make an ocean, Sisyphus. It is so true that I am amazed no one has tried to bottle up consistency and sell it at record-breaking prices.
We are not here as bystanders in the journey we share with our societies and fraternities. It is a mistake to think that we do not contribute to the spaces we occupy. We do. Our assent, dissent, and silence count for the world we build. So, make yourself count. Challenge that managing committee. Give your house-help a paid day off. Volunteer your time to a cause you believe in. Add that positively reinforcing hashtag to your social media post. Counter your family’s outdated views, if they have them. Write to your local municipalities and ask for accountability. Write to construction companies and ask why protective gear is not being provided. Pick one thing, and do it over and over again. Do not stretch yourself too thin because compassion fatigue is real. While you’re here to participate in the world we build, you’re also here to savour it. So, savour it Sisyphus. Love the bejeezus out of your people and shower kindness in the spaces you inhabit. We are starved for compassion, affection, and acceptance so much so that we tend to fill this void with negative feelings and fling our pain out into the world. All humans deserve the same rights as we want for ourselves. All humans also deserve a similar kind of acceptance we want for ourselves.
The whole thing seems like a Sisyphean task but I wonder if the punishment that Sisyphus received was actually a punishment after all. To be fair, Sisyphus had evaded death twice in his life, he lived a full life with his wife till a ripe old age. Then, he was condemned by Zeus for tricking Death twice and was given this punishment we all hold so close to our existential selves to define a fruitless job. However, I wonder what would really happen if someone kept pushing a boulder uphill and it kept rolling down. Unless this is happening in a vacuum, both the boulder and the surface of the hill should erode over a period of time. Seasons should change (unless of course, seasons don’t change in the underworld where Sisyphus is performing this task). The hill should have a groove eroded into it by this activity of pushing the boulder uphill and then it rolling down. If it ever rains or precipitation of any kind occurs, the groove should fill up with some sort of liquid or hail or fire. The entire topography of the hill should change and the boulder itself should also transform in shape. Would we still say that Sisyphus has achieved nothing? Or are we saying that Zeus has created the perfect vacuum inside a mythical tale? There’s so much to unpack here and so much to re-imagine. Albert Camus says we must imagine Sisyphus happy. I imagine Sisyphus doing the work he needs to do every day, consistently knowing that it all adds up in the end. Because you know what? It does add up. All of it. Every single bit.
Love,
Jasmine
Dear Jasmine is a fortnightly column by an anonymous writer. If any of you want to send in questions, please send them to Jasmine here.
Loved the article specially the bit with Sisyphus, had never thought about it like this before
Loved the article, righteousness over anything else.!