The Garden That Was Given to You
El jardín que te fue dado
A question about how to use one's privilege responsibly, and whether privilege is truly ours to wield.
The Garden That Was Given to You
A question about how to use one's privilege responsibly, and whether privilege is truly ours to wield.
If we see privilege as power, how do we use our privileges responsibly? Wouldn't that be me using my power responsibly?
What is an example of privilege that you have that is truly yours?
What I'm pointing to is that all of the safety you have was given to you, even if you've done a lot to get there in a certain sense. The capacity to get there, all of it, is given by conditions, the conditions of life. So it is, in a sense, a gift that life gives you. This is my perspective: it is the gift that life gives you, and it is your responsibility to tend to it.
Privilege as a garden entrusted to you
Think of it like a garden. Someone has entrusted it to you for whatever amount of time. Here is the garden of the safety you have, and that is a privilege. How can you grow it so that you can offer it? You are simply brought in to be the gardener for that time, however long it may be.
You come into the garden and take care of it, but the garden was not made by you. You can share it, but it is your responsibility. If the garden is shrinking and the plants are dying, that matters.
When life changes what is entrusted
But then it might be that life changes. You have done all you could, and then circumstances shift. What was entrusted to you is no longer the same, and something else is entrusted to you instead: some other kind of privilege. I think we all have all kinds of gifts and privileges that we are given.
Any sense that a privilege is yours is good only insofar as it means: it has been given to me for this time, and I am responsible for it. But it is all given. It is all entrusted.
Seeing that it is given, not self-made
From that place is where we can really act wisely. There is a deeper wisdom available when whatever gift or privilege has been given is used with the understanding that it was given to us rather than coming from us. Because one is true and the other is not.
This requires either trust in what I'm saying, enough to explore it for yourself, or seeing directly for yourself that it is all being given. We co-create, yes, but everything has been given, and the co-creating is part of the responsibility. Gifts can be given, and they can be squandered.