The Privileged Bi(a)tch
I swear to every god listening that if someone calls me privileged again…
Almost a whole year of Substack and as unknown as the first day, when I timidly posted my first “I have nothing to say” piece. An experiment, I called it, an exercise in writing. I have the gift of gab, I know that much about myself. Do I also have the gift of writing? That, I don’t know, but according to my growth on this platform, I do not.
I see so many pleading with the invisible God of the algorithm: please Substack, show me writers who actually have something to say. Now, what does this even mean? I’ve had an encounter with some aliens last night—worth sharing with the world? It might be. I struggle with trauma, let me show you my bruises—also worth sharing.
Me? An ignoramus. I cry, hiding behind my stories and keep my bruises beneath words as invisible bandages—I’m mute.
And for sure I’m using AI to write for me, just look how many em dashes already live happily on this page. And every AI detection app would agree with you, because my English is influenced by the languages that came before it. And there is a bias against writing in English as a second language, or third, or fourth or whatever number belongs in this sentence. Because how dare you? But I’m in amazing company, and oddly enough, I feel honored. When the makers of the AI detection software not only declare Jane Austen obsolete but mock her language, I raise my hat to them… but what if they caught me and actually know I am a rogue AI—does an AI pay taxes, I wonder. And if not, how can I convince taxman too that I always have been, am, and always will be an AI. With nothing to say.
But I strayed away from the privilege subject, because this is what happens when I let the words take control over my artificial mind.
I’ll start with one privilege now and provide another for each of the next blessed days I have left… on Substack:
As a teenager I had the privilege of standing in line for two rolls of toilet paper—long before Covid made the ritual fashionable—pink and rather effective as a cosmetic scrub too, and if it disappeared before my turn came to take the treasure home, I wiped my behind with crumpled newspaper, leaving no lavender whiff but the news of the day imprinted on some of my most sensitive skin. All that while thinking of the last party where we had salami with soy, bread, and—for whoever wanted it—salt.
There. Privileged. And stupid enough to think that the tears might come through, or even matter.
Salt, anyone?
This piece is very witty! Clever, humorous, entertaining, memorable. So well written, like all Deea's literary creations. We need more, keep writing!