Love and Theft

I undertake the precept to refrain from stealing. (lit. "taking what is not offered")

When I first read this Buddhist precept my reaction was: “That’s easy peasy. I’m not a thief. “

Then I started thinking.

The first thing that sprang to mind is that I have stolen things, at least in my early life, mostly shoplifting when I was a teenager. This was mostly due to the peer pressure of some rebellious ‘friends’ I was trying to impress at the time who thought that kind of thing was cool. I didn’t, but was sick of being bullied and needed some allies so I went along with the crowd. This lack of conviction and deep suspicion that what I was doing was wrong meant that I was never very good at it. During our illicit sprees at Meadowhall shopping centre I would turn bright red and shake when I was doing it (always very clumsily), look incredibly suspicious when I was leaving the shop (looking over my shoulder every two seconds with a look of blind panic on my face then stumbling towards the exit). Afterwards, I would feel so guilty I would worry all the way home on bus and then go straight up to my bedroom and cry myself to sleep. Once I actually went back the next day and put the thing back on the shelf.

Then there’s the stealing from my parents. As I have mentioned before, I smoked for many years of my life. I mostly funded this by part time work, but when my own money ran out it was not unknown for me to, in the midst of a morning craving, dip into my parent’s money pot. They trustingly left it on the table for transport, food and essential things but I would often help myself to a couple of quid for a packet of Marlborough reds. I felt guilty about this too, very guilty, but I would justify it by telling myself that I would put the money back, one day, when I was richer. It was just a loan, a secret loan, granted, but it wasn’t stealing, not from my own parents. Anyway, I thought, if the bastards hadn’t have stopped my allowance (when they discovered I was smoking) then I wouldn’t have had to borrow the money. Needless to say, to this day I haven’t put the money (which probably amounts to several hundred pounds) back, although I fully intend to, when I am rich. Who knows if I will though. I haven’t stolen from my parents since I left home, nearly eight years ago. However, I still feel bad about this betrayal of trust. I know its something that most teenagers do at some point or other, especially if they have a semi serious nicotine and pot habit to feed, but still, I feel bad.

In more recent times I have stopped such blatant stealing, in such black and white terms but there are still instances I can think of where I frequently take what’s not offered. Recently me and O had a huge argument because he discovered I was eating chocolate bars and pasties when I was out in town, despite an agreement we had that junk food is off limits for both of us. It was made doubly bad because it’s him who is earning all the money and working hard paying for things like my gym membership so I can lose this damn weight. Hardly ethical living there, Jen.

Then you get onto the very, very, very difficult issue of downloading and copyright. A lot of our music is pirated and to some extent I agree with O’s strong views on the stupidity and unjustness of the copyright laws. Downloading has made me way more knowledgeable about the music industry than I could have ever afforded to be if I was actually paying for my tunes. I know more artists, am more experimental with my tastes and less taken in by hype and packaging. Still, I have never felt that easy about doing it. It is technically theft, even though nearly all of my generation do it at some point in their lives. It is undoubtedly, from a Buddhist point of view, taking what is not offered, therefore if I were to take the precepts, I guess I would have to stop.
This is where it all gets a bit tricky in my head.

1. I like music and don’t want to have no access to it. Especially since I have no money to pay for it.

2. I believe that by buying music from major record labels you are supporting a corporation rather than an artist. I also believe that most of the major corporate record labels have actually done more harm than good to the music industry. It’s better, if you want to actually support the artist, to go and see them live as much more of your money will go straight to their pocket.

3. However, since I have chosen him to be the primary moral guide in my life, based on my knowledge of his actions and his teachings, it is important to ask:

Q: Would Buddha, if teaching now, have used Limewire?

A: Probably not.

Which leads me to:

4. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a kleptomaniac, but considering I have indulged in stealing, albeit guiltily, for a large part of my life, do I actually believe that all theft is wrong? Am I at one with the Buddha on this, or are we at loggerheads? After all, my absolute childhood hero (apart from Just William) was Robin Hood, who, as the legend goes, ripped off the rich to feed the poor. Part of me still loves that idea. There is so much injustice in the world. Why not take from those who have screwed you and your beloved planet over? Why not get the corporate fatcats where it hurts?

But when I say these words, I get the same feeling I do when I was talking to the rebellious kids in Meadowhall shopping centre. I start to feel uncomfortable, overwhelmed by that sense of over justification and lack of real conviction. Despite it being the so called radical thing to say, this is not what I really believe.

Blame it on a childhood overdose on Jesus if you want, but in my heart of hearts I think theft is wrong. I don’t feel proud of all the stealing I’ve done in my life, in fact, quite the opposite. I can’t simply make myself feel at ease with it all by saying to myself :‘all property is theft’. At the end of the day, I think stealing is a negative action, and when you steal someone always ends up getting hurt. It may not be the person you think and the pain could be financial, emotional, psychological or physical. I believe that inflicting pain is wrong, whoever you inflict it upon. There is no such thing as a person who deserves pain or deserves to suffer. Even if they by their actions have harmed other people, this wrong is not solved by harming them. At the end of the day one of the Buddha’s central guiding teachings is that you should treat all beings equally and do harm to none. In my eyes theft is a harmful action, and so should be avoided.

I also believe in treating other people how I would like to be treated myself, (that old chestnut) and the times I have been stolen from have hurt me. The pain ranged from panic and rage when I had my wallet stolen to just vague annoyance that people in my halls of residence had been at my milk again. Whatever the depth of your reaction though, being stolen from is never a pleasant experience. When I think of my own stealing, of my parents maybe not being able to afford a meal out because I had swiped the last tenner, when talented bands I love lose their record contract because of declining sales, when Owen can’t have that book he wanted because I spent 3 pounds on a bacon and sausage sandwich, I think you selfish selfish bitch. That’s the crux of the matter for me, stealing is a very self centered act where you put your own desires over those of another being. In doing so you are, at least in Buddhist terms, not acting in the spirit of compassion and generosity but in terms of your own ego’s hoarding and selfishness.

Once again though, as with many of these precepts, it’s put your money where your mouth is time. Am I really ready to make the commitment and turn my back on free downloads? Am I really sure I’m sure? Its one thing believing and quite another to do. I am very attached to music and the music scene and the idea of going without it not only scares me but goes against the grain as well.

So you see, thinking about these precepts is really challenging me. O thinks the whole concept of subscribing to a formula of set precepts is outdated and ridiculous, but that’s an entry for another time. For now, its just good to be thinking these things through, and wrestling with moral issues, which, if I’m honest, I had been avoiding doing since leaving the church all those years ago.

In Praise of Omelette Makers

The feminist movement has a slogan, I don’t know who coined it or anything but it’s on a hell of a lot of the T shirts and posters that are out there. It reads: “Well behaved women rarely make history.”

This is one of the truest things I have read and these are words I hold close to my heart. Partly because I believe they are true and partly because I think they hold a great challenge for me in my life.

An incident that happened yesterday can illustrate the point nicely:

There is a woman who I work with (I call it work but it’s really volunteering, and most of that seems to be taken with tea breaks) who is fairly obviously a committed feminist. I’ve never really spoken to her about her beliefs in great detail as the opportunity has never arisen, but all the signals are there. Anyway, I really like her, she’s a good 30 years older than me and whether she’d technically call herself a feminist or not she’s a really good example of a woman who is self reliant, opinionated and totally committed to both her family (she has 6 kids!) and her career. She’s caring and clever and genuinely assertive; not in an insecure loud way but in a solid, self assured kind of manner. All in all, I have come to view her as a bit of a role model. Her independence shines through in everything she does, she’s not afraid to take the lead, crack a bad joke, organise the team, and speak her mind. The funny thing is though, when I first met her she really got my back up. I think she gets other people’s backs up too, it is quite challenging having such a strong woman in our midst. The guys in the group are flummoxed. They hold the door open for her, she waves them in first. They offer her a chair, she firmly refuses it. She won’t laugh at their jokes when she doesn’t think they’re funny, she tells them when she thinks they’re wrong.

Yesterday, one of the guys got quite upset by something she said, which wasn’t anything mean, but was just a forceful disagreement with something he had asserted. As bad feeling settled around the room and she looked blissfully unbothered, it triggered me to look at myself, almost like I was in a mirror. Yes, she’s a lot older than me and has the confidence that age and experience often brings but the differences between us are quite resounding. Whereas I have admired her as a forceful character, which she certainly is, I am more “well behaved” in many of my social circles. Going with the work example, I am well liked within the group. Partly because I am gentle and kind and ask a lot of questions about other peoples lives and then respond with lots of sympathy. Also, I think they appreciate me for giggling like a school girl at many of the bad jokes that the men proudly banter around (the group is 90% male). I often just nod my head and smile even when they are saying ridiculous things. I am afraid to take the lead, to organise, to boss. Very few of them know what I am really like; speaking my mind is usually the opposite of what I am doing. I do not really assert my will onto the group, even when I have an idea that could make it run better. Often, I am too cowardly to even mildly dissent.

Yes, I know there are different personality types. I’ve read Jung, I’ve taken the Myers- Briggs test (I am an INFJ) I also know I we all have different strengths and weaknesses and you can run yourself ragged or even make yourself ill comparing yourself to other people. I am not beating myself up for this, per say. I know my diplomatic nature has often helped further the feminist cause in many other areas, and my empathy and tolerance are qualities that I quite like about myself. But there is a distinct difference between being diplomatic and a doormat. There is something to be said for standing up for your beliefs at whatever cost. I believe it is important to face conflict and say what you really think, even if it offends the other person or could lose you something. I think in some of my social circles I am simply too well behaved, too fucking polite, too scared of the consequences. It’s not just about whether or not I’ll make history, it’s not my legacy I care about. It’s thinking about those terribly cliched but still resoundingly true phrases like ‘all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing’. It’s about nodding to these, then realising that in a lot of your life you could be doing good work; challenging ignorant opinions, changing minds, really living what you believe when in reality you are simply going with the status quo for fear of rocking the boat.

So, you see, if I were to get a tattoo right now, it would probably read “well behaved women rarely make history”. The message for me is clear and it throws down the gauntlet in a lot of ways. It means stand and be counted, put your money where your mouth is! If you want to change the world, like you so often wish for, you have to resist resist resist and that’s not going to happen by simply writing long rants in personal diaries or publishing a little read internet blog. You have to act in the real world, with real people. You should be taking risks, raising eyebrows, generating anger and if it comes to it, losing real friends. You know the thing about the necessity of breaking eggs to make an omelette, well that’s the truth. At the moment I am carefully carrying my half- dozen free range eggs around with me (each wrapped individually in cotton wool) too scared to commit them to the hot sizzling oil of the frying pan. The problem is that when you don’t break eggs, they eventually rot inside their delicate shells and then what good are they to anyone?

I don’t like conflict but I am so at odds with this society. That in itself is a strange position to be in. There is so much I think is wrong going on right under our noses. I am sure there are many of us who feel the same. Above all, we must learn to speak out against the injustices we see. Being well behaved, whether you be a man or a woman, is the path that they, (the people who are most profiting from all this misery) want you to take. Toeing the line and simply doing as we’re told is paving the way to a fear filled world full of oppression, control, and paralysing terror. We must strive to cultivate a questioning, free mind and learn to say the important word that is ‘no’.

Here’s to all the brave omelette makers of the world who are standing up and putting their necks on the line for what they think is right. I’d like to think that one day, even I might add my eggs into the mix.

Grandma

I have spent a lot of today thinking about old age. My grandma died at around about this time of year (such a dutiful granddaughter: I can’t remember the date/month/year), but I’m pretty sure it was in the spring, with the daffodils just about to die. So she has been playing on my mind for the last few days. She died in an old peoples home as the family couldn’t cope with her severe, aggressive dementia. Within eighteen months she went from being my lovely cuddly grandma to a husk of a woman. Being witness to the journey she underwent; the accelerated decaying process that left her unable to remember her own name or the name of her husband, children or, well… me… it was one of the most influential things that has happened to me. You just don’t forget shit like that. I was walking the walls of the city, and memories of her last months floated back into my conciousness: the smell of the pine air freshener that she had to breathe all day and the fish tank in the home's hallway with the moldy goldfish that swam in tiny circles. The guest’s "sign in" book that recorded our weekly visit and the tragedy of the fact that on more than one occasion there were no other names in the book to separate our Sunday signatures.

I have always hated old peoples homes. With a passion. I used to work at one, I know the shit that goes on there. People, good people who have given so much to their families and their communities are just left in high backed chairs to rot. There is no respect for the intelligence, individuality, history or needs of that person. Yes, they will get fed, even if it is the same tinned grapefruit or stewed prunes every day. Yes, they will be dressed, if they no longer can for themselves. Yes, they will get toileted once every couple of hours. Unless the staff forget, and then they have to physically sit in their own piss and shit for hours on end. In these places, there is no dignity. None. Most people in old peoples homes are not really people at all, in my experience, they are just empty shells waiting for their next 10 minute family visit, or if they have no relatives, they sit there and look forward to the day they finally stop breathing.

Now, call me silly if you will, but to me that’s no way for even one life to end. And for thousands upon thousands of these broken people to be abandoned, (not just by their families but by their communities), exploited of their hard earned life savings, neglected, drugged beyond recognition until they finally lose the will to live and croak…well….to me it is beyond dubious. This is abuse, plain and simple. Abuse of a whole generation, abuse of the most vulnerable group in our society. This is happening now, every day and it’s a fucking travesty. The friends and the relatives of people who have had to go through these systems and have seen our mums and dads, grandmas and granddads, friends and even enemies destroyed by them should be screaming about this abuse through megaphones outside polling stations and TV stations. We should be burning the places to the ground. We should be suing the corrupt owners of these establishments who bleed their residents dry. We should be going into the thick of it and helping those poor bastards who after all did much more than fight in the much toted wars; they raised us, read us stories, fed us home cooked meals, made sacrifice after sacrifice for both this country and our communities and our own families. This is the thanks they get? We should be so ashamed.

Yet I am not talking from a holier than thou perspective. My immediate family committed my grandma to one of these places. It made her worse and she died. We have that on our consciences forever. However, like many people in that situation we believed all the shit the system told us, that we couldn’t manage her at home, that she’d be better there, that she was a danger to herself and others, that she was unsafe in the community. We acted with the best of intentions. So do so many of us. But I think most of us know, I think in my heart of hearts we knew, that we acted with blood on our hands. Who hasn’t been to an old folks home and retched at the barely disguised smell of cabbage and piss? Who hasn’t noticed the woman in the corner with her dress on back to front and her teeth hanging out? And who hasn’t looked around at all the vacant expressions staring at countdown on the telly and thought; "shoot me, please, before I get to this stage"?

There is a cancer at the heart of our society. Maybe one of the reasons we’re all so obsessed with botox and anti wrinkle cream is because we know what’s waiting for us at the end of the line. It's not the thought of endless bingo nights and tepid institution food that creates the horror of the situation, it's the fact that these things are, in an old people's home, life's highlights.

News flash, people. We’re all gonna die. You won’t avoid it however hard you try. Science isn’t going to find a miracle cure, you’ll be pushing up daisies before you’ve even really had a chance to realise the implications of being alive. And when you do die you will probably be in a lot of pain and very scared. Dying well and dying bravely is one of the hardest things there is to do. Trust me on this. Wouldn’t it be nice, then, if our very last years were spent with our families, or if not with them, then in places that valued us and our wisdom, where we were treated with respect and compassion rather than as if we were nuisances at best, simple commodities at worst? Wouldn’t it be good if, even on our death beds, we were still being asked; "What can you teach us?" A dying person has access to some of life’s most potent wisdom, yet he is dosed up with morphine and goes screaming into the night surrounded by people who don’t know how to help, or have been taught, for professional reasons, not to get too involved.

My grandma died four years ago, almost to the day. I don’t know how yet but I don’t want her to have died in vain. I tried writing a play about it, one day I will try to write, or do, something else.

For today this little blog will have to do.

Body Image- (To Joan)

I loved your fat,
handfuls of it.
Breasts so big
they flattened me against
the wall in the hallway.
A scuffed knee,
a broken toy,
a sore throat;
all my worries
ran to your open arms.
Clasped to your chest:
rising and falling,
rising and falling.
Your heart beat
a tribal drum
that spoke to me
in ways your
stubby tongue
and cracked lips
could not.
Your clothes bursting
with rolls of blubber.
Wild eyes
and double chin.
No lipstick,

a faint moustache,

false teeth.

I had yet to encounter
Miss World on her
callous catwalk.
To me you were
woman,
old woman
in all her glory
and I was proud
to sit beside you
on the bus.

Bin Man

I have just come home from Sainsburies. It was a quarter to closing and the shop assistants were running round the shop putting reduced stickers on everything. I, like the rest of the soul sold middle class vultures was flocking around them around putting bargains galore in my basket. Lamb chops, hummus and poppy seed loaf. I am a fan of this time of day. Why pay full price when you can race in a most undignified manner against a sock sandeled man to the last pot of 85p guacamole? It is such fun.

I managed to score us some good grub for tea and was walking home listening to PJ Harvey swinging my leeks as I went, when I turned into the street that leads into ours. The sun had gone down, and the light was the sort of twilight that plays tricks on the eyes. So when I saw something moving in the corner of my vision, I didn’t pay it too much attention. But when I heard a rustling beyond the bushes I lifted my head to see a man, with a shaven head and combat boots on eating from a bin.

He look startled to see me (it is a quiet road) and I thought I saw a flicker of embarrassment on his face, but he wasn’t going to turn down food and he kept on eating. It was pizza. The box was soaked through with last night’s grease and the piece he was eating had somebody else’s ketchup on the crust.

I nearly burst into tears then and there. This kind of thing is to me like a body blow. Some people can block it out, some can look the other way. I can’t. I’m not saying I do anything much about it, except occasionally give guilt money for the big issue and the occasional cup of tea. I thought about the lamb chops in my bag, eight for only seventy five pence, and nearly gave them him. But, I thought, what good would raw meat be for someone who probably hasn’t even got a fork let alone an oven? I wondered about cash, to tell him to go and get a real pizza but I had none, and if I had run to the cash machine and given him a tenner, we wouldn’t have been able to go out tonight. So I just walked on by.

It is so wrong that someone, anyone, has to eat leftover food out of a bin, ever.

It is doubly wrong that in a city like York where people queue around the block for overpriced cucumber sandwiches at the numerous tea shops there is a man who for whatever reason can’t feed himself and we all look the other way.

And it is wrong, so terribly wrong that when I got home, I spread my guacamole on my poppy seed loaf and half an hour later had forgotten all about him.