Being Reduced

My primary objection to hand-to-mouth living and anyone being reduced to a productive asset, is the inability to see each other. Whether it is reduction to money, muscles, and sperm. Or reduction to feeding, caring, and reproduction. Breadwinner. Homemaker. I don’t object to any of the things that need doing. Just to us being defined by the things that need doing, or forgetting the reason why we are doing the things that “need” doing. 

You may get marriages where the couple never see each other, but one pays the bills and the other holds their world together. Some would call that a good team. I call BS. Unless that is truly what you want… then I have no problem with that. Other than the risk involved if that world gets bumped. That is not what I want. 

I love deep conversations. I love “democratic goods”… things that are valuable but cost very little because they are plentiful rather than scarce. It’s not that I don’t like scarce goods or see their value. It is more the trade-offs that take the shine off. How much time do I sacrifice for those things? What conversations do I miss out on? What are the unintended consequences of choosing to work for that thing? What we do matters. 

Our actions have consequences. Consequences connect and build. Constraints, boundaries, and agreements create and destroy the worlds we experience, and how we see each other.

Reducing the Sauce