We have a dream here in the west, that is fed to us by the media, advertising and the general field of belief held in the collective consciousness . The dream is: we can progress, we can do anything we want and do all manner of exciting things. In short, there is a belief in the power of personal agency and autonomy.
I think, from my small experience that this is a fallacy . A useful fallacy that we all want to believe in and is propagated by the powers that be, to keep us aspiring, attaining and more importantly spending!
I actually find from personal experience that we have very little agency in our lives. In particular in relation to the big things that really matter to us. Yes, we have agency over what we have for breakfast or what we wear but I don’t think we do for the major things that shape our lives.
Take falling in love……Love is a beautiful thing that happens to us. WE don’t choose where our hearts will settle, it comes upon us and then we follow. Take developing a passion- like my passion for songwriting. We find we are drawn to something, and have a capacity for it and then we follow. Take finding a job- we might want to do all kinds of things but often end up with whatever manifests.
I am just experiencing a series of events that underlines the lack of agency and how this is linked and intertwined with capitalism. For fifteen years we have rented our humble cottage and have had a most excellent agreement with the landlord – cheaper rent in exchange for doing up the place a little. We have created an orchard, a vegetable garden, a rose garden, a hen compound and a reflection/scented/firepit garden. We have been excellent tenants and they have been excellent landlords. We grew our boys here and I grew my music teaching business here- teaching on summers days in the beautiful garden ….children skipping amongst the flowers and singing under trees. We called it The Kingdom. It was a place of light and love and kindness. Now, it is to be sold because there is a new law coming next year. Ironically a green law that does not suit these old little cottages where people can grow some of their own food ! Next year all landlords must make their properties reach a certain green emissions standard so tenants are not in ” fuel poverty’. So, instead they are selling them and evicting the tenants, it is just too costly to update our house to the standard required. Our landlord is now turning to the profit margins gained from the acquisition of farm land than the now expensive commodity of rural housing. We are being rehomed but it is not like for like and it massively impacts both of our work and way of life.
I feel caught in an awful capitalist maths equation. Human lives matter little in this equation. Capitalism and business are concerned with progress and productivity and making money for stakeholders. We think as a society that this is just fine and how things should be . Business is business.
But, is it ? Is it fine to take away someone’s home? Is it fine to allow long standing tenants no rights other than a few months to get their affairs in order? Is it fine to keep workers on a wheel of bad pay so they can never move beyond being a pawn in powerful mens games?
Personal agency from this perspective looks like a rich mans commodity. It looks like a luxury that many can only dream of. The macro decisions of governments, laws and the decisions of a development company filter down and effect our lives in quite massive and devastating ways.
We are lucky that our experience of lack of agency is only experienced through this eviction and not because of war. All over the world people experience the effects of decisions made by the powers that be, that they can only experience and have no deciding power over.
However, I am always one for eventually trying to find silver linings. There is something I DO have agency over….
I have agency over how I think, how I frame things and how I move forward with what life puts in my path. There is a time for wailing and grief and there is a time for putting my best foot forward. So, now I choose. I have agency to frame this situation and make the best of it….
Brilliant- I can declutter ( much needed…..I would rather do any creative project than be spick and span!)
Fantastic- I can make a beautiful love nest for my husband and I ,without the clutter of family life.
Exciting- we have a derelict garden and waste ground to be creative with and in time make a beautiful garden space…..
I will exercise the agency of positivity and creativity : that is the power I have and I will use it well. In that way, I can shape my life with intent – not caring that I am a pawn in the powers that shape my life. Nobody can take away the agency of free and positive thought and that, perhaps, is the most powerful agency of all.
Abi's World of Music 