Did Marie Antoinette really say “Let them eat cake?”
As you scroll through your newsfeed in lockdown—an article on the backlog of funerals in Italy, a picture of the curry potatoes on rice that migrant workers receive in their quarantine dormitories in Singapore, a video of a black woman twerking on a white policeman who was trying to detain her, an invitation to sign a petition to defund the New York state police—you receive another batch of petit croissants from a well-meaning friend in support of a local artisanal bakery. You have more bread than you know what to do with. You want to donate the pastries to a charity group, but you saw on their website that they’re looking for non-perishable items like canned food and milk powder.
You don’t want the bread to go to waste; you don’t want to embarrass yourself.
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The last time you were in Paris, you wanted to visit an anarchist bakery called La Conquette du Pain, but you didn’t in the end because you had not read the Kropotkin pamphlet it was named for, The Conquest of Bread. So you went to Ladurée instead. In Ladurée there’s no need to think. Everything’s pretty. All you had to do was eat cake, sip tea and pay the bill. Consumption is banal but surely its predictability is a slice of the good life? No one needs to tell you not to rock the boat anymore, you’ve internalised it, checkmate! When you were younger, when you had been to fewer places and had less money, you believed that idealism was a necessity. You had read Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution as a theory against social Darwinism’s survival-of-the-fittest. Life was not just an individual struggle for the sheer means of existence, but a collective struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. That was how we would progress, together. Now you tell yourself that distance is a good thing. It’s a measure of how far you’ve come. Hemmed in by the constant volume of your work and the peripheral labour of maintaining the veneer of your success, everything else has grown so far away. Isn’t this what a meritocracy looks like?
On your front door, you’ve hung a sticker opting for contactless delivery, but it isn’t because you’re afraid of the virus. What you fear is coming face-to-face with the delivery worker. If you looked into his or her eyes, you’d have to confront your own privilege reflected right back at you. Certainly, you believe that society should be a more equitable place, who doesn’t? But when you are being completely honest with yourself, you’re unsure of what you’re willing to give up to make it so. Abstraction and apathy used to get you through the day, just like your morning latte and lunchtime yoga. Now you suspect they might no longer be enough. In your bathroom, you’ve draped a kimono over the full-length standing mirror.
The sky has not fallen down. It is the same shade of blue that it ever was.
Funny to think that it’s one of the things you thought you wouldn’t be able to live without. You had to look in the mirror every morning when putting your face on, but now you see there’s no real need for it. You thrill to the fact that you’ve stopped shaving your legs. Underwire bras and tailored pants feel like foreign artefacts from a past lifetime. Sifting through the objects you’ve surrounded yourself with, you’ve been thinking about what you’re attached to and why. What myths were being assigned and peddled to you alongside these accumulations?
This sudden departure from the capitalist edifice is certain proof that none of its machinated rhythms are as solid and irreversible as we have all been led to believe. The sky has not fallen down. It is the same shade of blue that it ever was. Either isolation is making you emotional or life before that must have rendered you emotionless. You hope against hope that it’s the former and not the latter. Look, no one is watching now. There are no motions to go through. Left to your own devices, you have time and space to explore your own impulses.
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ARISE
Our mutual and collective entanglements are delicate and profound. You are not a solitary instrument but a totality of involvements. You would like to gently disabuse yourself of the violent notions that your economic productivity and material consumption are your primary ways of relating to the world.
Death and taxes were never meant to be the hallmark certainties of life. Before old rhythms solidify, slice and syncopate them into new directions. If you’re waiting for a sign, there is no better mark than your internal desire for an external reason. Hidden, seething, alert. You wished it away, but the ache inside you only came back stronger.
How it always was is not how it always has to be. Destroy the truisms you’ve politely adhered to and you’ll find the trembling seeds of your truth. You don’t have to know your destination to begin your manifestation. Manifestation becomes destination.
What is normal and who gets to decide? How do you want to relate to the world? What are the things you can do to come closer to these modes of relation? Who is essential to you and to whom are you essential? Which are the feelings that have made you feel new, whole, real, true? When will you act on them if not in this one precious life?
ARISE
Make a change
To make a tangible change, consider donating to the list of following charities, who are supporting important causes in society today.
Aware provides specialised support for women, educates the public on gender equality, and promotes equitable laws and policies.
Visit their website to find out more information.
Star Shelter provides safe temporary refuge for women and their children who are victims of family violence regardless of race, language, creed or religion.
Visit their website to find out more information.
Food from the Heart is a food charity that feeds the needy and runs their food distribution programmes with sustainable charity in mind.
Visit their website to find out more information.
The T Project is an independent community initiative that serves the transgender community by providing shelter, and creates job opportunities for the transgender community.
Visit their website to find out more information.
Project X is an organisation that provides social, emotional, and health services to people in the sex industry.
Visit their website for more information.
HOME is a charity that empowers and supports migrant workers who find themselves victims of human rights violations and suffer abuse and exploitation.
Visit their website for more information.
Migrant Workers’ Centre champions fair employment practices and the well-being of migrant workers in Singapore.
Visit their website to find out more information.
TWC2, short for Transient Workers Count Too, is a charity focusing on improving conditions for low-wage migrant workers.
Visit their website to find out more information.
Daughters of Tomorrow helps to facilitate livelihood opportunities for underprivileged women and support them in achieving financial independence and enable social mobility for their families.
Visit their website for more information.
