How many times have I heard that I should watch my words, watch my thoughts, watch my believes, because I am so privileged. I am one big cliché: born in one of the richest, safest, happiest countries in the world to intelligent, healthy, well-off, loving parents that showed me culture, gave me and education and took me around the world. I am straight, married with children, I have brains, I can do the work I love, I have just enough money to not worry about it. I am healthy and strong. “Skinny, overprivileged, white mommy.” What the hell am I talking about? 

Roxane Gay wrote brilliantly about this subject in her book Bad Feminist: “You don’t necessarily have to do anything once you acknowledge your privilege. You don’t have to apologize for it. You need to understand the extent of your privilege, the consequences of your privilege, and remain aware that people who are different from you move through and experience the world in ways you might never know anything about.” I acknowledge I am EXTREMELY privileged. Just that gives me the responsibility to use it wisely. To explore, to try and find truth, to seek for new paths and new ways of being. To look for freedom, for love, for anything that can help us humans push forward. To gain some more meaning and fulfillment in every day life. I do not ever complain, I ask questions about the things we pass by too easily. I question love, freedom and truth in the name of everyone, not just my own. And I feel more than privileged because in this lifetime I had the possibility to do so. Until now I did not spend days in hospitals, looking for food or safety. I have been comfortably in my chair reflecting about life. I know I am privileged, and I am beholden to use every moment of that privileged time for all the people who are not. Life is complicated for all of us, yet on so many different levels we cannot begin to imagine.

To speak with Roxane: “It’s hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you’re going to float the fuck away.”