Live Live

 

One time I was talking to a girl whose description of her work hours appeared nightmarish. When I remarked that it sounded awful, she confirmed that it was, but on the ‘bright side’ it was helping her ‘get to the end of the day’ really quickly. Like each day was something to dispose of. I was in awe of the fact that not only had she decided that her time was an encumbrance, she was also actively engaged in an occupation that did not allow room to think about it. A few months ago, a friend suggested that I read and reread the first chapter of Deleuze’s Nietzsche and Philosophy, saying that it would make me think about how one might live. It was a chapter he went back to often. I joked that it sounded like his Quran. It made me think about where I go (or have gone) to seeking answers to how one might live.

Yesterday, I remarked to another friend that I was more than the sum of the identities, and probably hated all of them (some more than others). That is something that definitely informs how I live. Every aspect of my identity is used pejoratively, both by me and against me. The other day my sister was disparaging how the British museum (and colonial logic) claims that by stealing artefacts from colonies, that actually ensured their security from the savage masses. I am not usually inclined to playing Devil’s Advocate, but living in a country where you cannot say with confidence that the Taj Mahal will survive the decade, it is difficult not to think they had a point. Imagine the Kohinoor if it was still in India.

So how might one live? Right now, I live by not correcting anyone who mishears my name as Vishal. Vishal offers safety and currency.  I eat less, lift less, smile less. I live as if this period is a a loading screen, waiting for real life to render. It makes me feel like Steinbeck’s quote about poor people under capitalism thinking of themselves as temporarily embarrassed billionaires. People without the capital to be who they actually are, but certainly expect to get there forthwith. To take comfort in telling yourself this is all temporary reminds me of another divine exhortation: to live with the knowledge that all of life is temporary.

So how might one live? Speaking of Steinbeck, I’m halfway through Grapes of Wrath. There is an idea he captures really well; that of everyone playing their part in service of a larger system whose machinations they’re not privy to let alone in control of. The incoherence is apparent to those on the receiving end. The people evicting the sharecroppers pin the blame on a faceless bank. “But the bank is made up of people,” reason the exasperated sharecroppers. They do not understand how an institution can evict them, leaving every person involved blameless in their immiseration. The giant evil killing machines would not work without a mass of people greasing the wheels, convincing themselves they are not part of the problem. They just want to be at brunch.

So how might one live? Was Ali Shariati right? What peace can one make with a world where a peaceful life for you can only come at the expense of the life and well-being of countless others? And if you are one of the others, is it incumbent on you to resist? Is it conscionable, rather, to seek a bridge to the other side knowing it cannot support the weight of everyone that might try to follow?

Might one live?