Do you think you deserve to eat?
What about your kin and friends?
What about your next door neighbor?
And what about the person down the block that you’ve never talked to? Does the person in the next town over deserve to eat?
We have a strong feeling that you believe you, those you know, and even those you don’t know deserve to eat.
And we have an equally strong feeling that if you asked most people, they too believe they and others deserve to eat.
If you believe that we all deserve to eat – then you are going against the grain of capitalism.
But what does it mean to deserve and what is capitalism?
- Deserve: “to merit, be qualified for, or have a claim to (reward, assistance, punishment, etc.) because of actions, qualities, or situation.” – dictionary.com
- Capitalism: “an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, characterized by the freedom of capitalists to operate or manage their property for profit in competitive conditions. an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations.” –dictionary.com
We have individually and collectively been conditioned to think that we must perform acceptable actions, display certain qualities, put ourselves in particular situations in order to “deserve” the fullness of living.
Living inside of capitalism requires us to be conditioned to the notion that to be deserving and “earn a living” is a natural part of being alive.
Living inside of capitalism requires us to perform aliveness in service to upholding a system that diminishes our authenticity, uniqueness, and agency.
Our aliveness is the ultimate product to be bought, sold, and exchanged.
This subtle and overt conditioning happens in various ways deeply rooted in “reward and punishment”.
If you behave as you are told, if you follow what you are told, if you think as you are told, if you exist and live in the ways you are told – then, and only then, are you rewarded and deemed deserving.
If you stray from this in any way, then your existence is deviant and therefore punishable and non deserving.
And we see in very real ways, that to stray can mean you are disposable, the cause of your own demise, and subject to violence and harm.
So in order to be rewarded, deserving, we must comply.
Our very existence must be in accordance with the demands, requests, requirements, conditions, and wishes of capitalism.
To not comply in this type of system means you loose the right to life and living.
You will be starved, you will loose access to water, you will lose the ability to have a home, you will lose community/belonging, you will be jailed, you will even be killed.
In this reality, to comply means to separate from our truest Self and humanity.
To comply means we often look away from others in need, who are different, who are deemed non deserving.
To comply means we become skilled at holding up masks and passing judgment.
To comply means we are well practiced in surface level performance of wellness, care, understanding, generosity, and compassion.
When we hold on to the notion of who is deserving and who is not, we consciously and/or subconsciously lean into imposing compliance. On ourselves and each other.
This individual and collective compliance reinforces the deserving vs the non deserving.
Do we really believe that someone has to deserve to eat?
Do we really believe that someone has to earn being alive?
Perhaps what we really referring to when we say deserving is the knowing that to because we exist. Because we are alive, nourishment is as fundamental as breathing. And we shouldn’t have to earn or perform or comply for this primary aspect of being alive.
Perhaps our humanity refuses to comply to the inhumane design of a system that is founded on manufactured lack.
But compliance and conditioning has wormed its way into our thoughts and feelings and imaginations, so we reach for the closest word we can find in the depths of capitalism that speaks to this knowing…deserve/deserving.
This reach to deserve/deserving is a powerful antidote to what we are collectively experiencing and witnessing.
In the act of reaching, we are stretching past the confines of compliance into the realm of interconnectedness and the innermost of our humanity.
I deserve to eat.
You deserve to eat.
We deserve to eat.
And be housed. And experience clean water.
What if we continued stretching so we can reach past deserving?
What if we more intentionally went against the grain of capitalism and embodied the knowing behind everyone deserves to eat?
What if we defied the compliance that this system of harm, oppression, and disconnection requires?
Can we strengthen and extend our capacity to see each other as interwoven threads of remarkable being?
Can we vision a world where being fed and being housed and clean water are undeniable fundamentals to being alive?
Can we expand our sense that all the Earth offers us to be alive is a gift: given without payment in return. given without its being earned?
Can you imagine it?
Can you feel it?
May we drop deep into the awareness that now is the time to practice new ways of being within ourselves and with each other.
May our ancestors stand before, behind, beside us as we navigate through and emerge.
May we be fortified and guided in the movement towards liberation.
*Artwork: Nico
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