Sorry, I don’t have any bargaining chips
I’m playing a different game
Most of the rules that we live by are not part of our everyday consciousness. Our working assumptions become just part of the background. Much of Western civilization and capitalism are about “getting ahead.” This “getting ahead” is typically about exchanging one thing for another thing in such a fashion that you “profit” or gain from the exchange. This dominant, and dominating, premise is considered fact by many, even those on the chronic short end of exchanges.
I prefer a different game. I prefer a game that neither reduces our primary way of being as bargaining nor measures one’s worth by how many “chips” one possesses. I do not want my life put to the bidding of others, whether in a bargain bin or at Christie’s Auction House. I seek to live simply and uncompromisingly. I value compassion and frugality. In short, I make a lousy capitalist and a lousy imperialist. I make an even worse slave!
In between the frugal two lines of this poem, one might presage a loss by not having the appropriate bargaining chips to leverage success and “win” the game. This is perhaps true if one accepts and adopts the values of a capitalistic system or “game.” Frankly, I think capitalists are overly serious, lacking a sense of play and humor. This should come as no surprise, since capitalists typically find it difficult to monetize play and humor, that is, profit off their experience of play and humor. Just look at the language of capitalists par excellence. A “game” has more to do with manipulation than lighthearted enjoyment. “Playing” someone means “getting the best of the them,” which, deeply ironically, means bringing out the worst in all parties. I prefer play and humor because they are good in and of themselves; they are not merely a means to something else, in some ultimately unsatisfying, endless chain of exchanges, ever trying to get the better of someone else and never getting the best of anyone. At least that’s what I see in capitalism, especially in practice, as opposed to theory. Of course, maybe I just have a bargaining chip on my shoulder…
