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To be in competition with my genes.

Some struggles of the Free Woman.

by Shira Service, September 2018

Medium Article

Though overall oppression has decreased and rights and standards have increased for women in the western world over the past several decades, the [relative to all of history] new integration of women into the commodified parts of society (besides that of the commodification of sexual sales and womens bodies) brings new challenges women must face whether they asked for it or not.

With greater freedom to decide one’s own societal role (be it CEO, homemaker, nurse, or artist), the overall freedom of women has expanded, and thus the responsibility to do right with these freedoms. However, just as with a person in poverty who is free to choose to work hard and get out of this poverty, studies have shown that saving money and the behaviors necessary to get oneself out of such a negative situation are going to be challenged by an onslaught of issues- which one at the top may not face- such as mental illness and the stresses and anxieties of being at the bottom of a civil structured pyramid.

As a creative woman, I find myself in a particular conundrum. At the saddle point of multiple fields; or the saddle point of multiple pyramids of societal hierarchies.

From this point, in order to succeed and move up a crest towards the top of a wave, rather than to move down one into the deepest pit, I almost must rid myself of several of the potential paths upwards, to choose one dominant structure with which to engage, and hopefully succeed.

It’s not rocket science darling. We’re just asking you to be thin and curvy, sexy and innocent!

How can I be a mother, an artist, an entrepreneur, a systems builder, and a CEO at one time? (This idea is humorously and depressingly portrayed in the BBC video embedded here). Even more, how can I do those things while also pursuing being my healthiest and most beautiful self, thus playing a serious hand in the age-old female-to-female hierarchical structure of sexual competition? A progressive female artist may say to me that this structure does not matter, but I see clearly that it does; just as on the inverse a woman atop the feminine-pyramid of sexual and physical attractiveness and health (perhaps health) may say that the art and creative output does not really matter. But I know that this, too, is a half-truth.

With just a bit of confirmation bias, perpetuated by the confirmation algorithms processing our social media existences, and enough hyper-focus on the ascension within one societal pyramid, I can make my moral system of specific, topical relevance to just the pyramid I am climbing, and — — success!

But, how many sticks of conventional incense will I continue to burn after my friend, perhaps in passing, noted the toxicity of burning it, not to mention the formaldehyde levels in those pesky sticks? The information of the negative health effects of conventional incense, as being comparably worse to that of cigarettes, is quite easy to access online if I only just turn my eyes to look for it. What about my deodorant, or my shaving cream? I want those silky smooth legs, but what exactly does that first chemical ingredient do to my liver? Of course, we may say, to be everything is to be nothing. And even more, it is impossible to be everything, thus what we must pursue is balance: a healthy, balanced state of equilibrium.

But, if I pursue this balance, looking forward in multiple directions to what is ahead, considering the value systems and moral code of multiple societal domains (and pyramids as I’ve been referring to them), while also acknowledging the successes and growths I have made, looking back with gratitude from the lower altitudes from which I’ve climbed, I find myself, once again,

at the Saddle Point.

What if I see them all- all the hierarchies?

And the problem with me is- I can do well in many of them, with time and effort. How? Because everything is at my fingertips- knowledge to succeed in each is right in front of me. And I am looking, and I am strategizing, and I am healthy and given relatively lucky genetic dispositions. But, I lack the resources from society to succeed quickly enough, and I lack the time granted from nature to extend my window for success.

And this is where the true freedom and the true paradox kicks in:

I must, with my limited time and exhaustible resources, choose to pursue some paths forward, and to ignore others. But how-

how is this

morally acceptable-

For a person becomes morally responsible for that which they know,

or for that which they know better about, and have some control over.

If I know that eating sugar is more addictive than (or even equally addictive to) cocaine, while feeding a body of gut flora which instigates a micriobiomic response in my enteric nervous system which kicks into action a heightened neuronal hyper-excited response, leaving me, essentially, at the will of a symbiotic body of bacteria within my gut rather than according to the greatest possible health achievable (through alternative diet which excludes the sugar, refined carbohydrates, alcohol, caffeine, dairy, gluten, casein, and any unhealthy fats, proteins and vegetables, especially those doused with insecticides pre-harvest, such as walnuts and almonds), and I have at least some control over what meals I eat (i.e., I am not in a dark cell being fed rice and flies for every meal),

then it is my responsibility, morally and ethically, to eat according to this knowledge, to keep my body and mind as healthy as possible, not only for me but for the future generations after me.

Unless I claim my strength and value is with the mind; my creations, my work- and thus my own body is not a big responsibility, for ‘I do not want to procreate anyhow’. Say, my work is not in making babies! It is in the legacy of improvements I will create for the world of science and art ahead of me!

But then, if that is really true, am I not more obliged, ethically, in an evolutionary sense, to have babies? Should I not, if I will truly be aiding society so valiantly, make damned sure I am passing on my talented genes? Is it not then my responsibility to do this? And if it is, then isn’t it best to find the best damn partner I can? So my genetic line will be made even better when crossed with his?

And if this is true, is it not then, again, my responsibility to be as healthy and beautiful and humanly possible in order to foster success in this realm, in order to foster success in that realm?

The thing is:

As a society and a world, we are becoming smarter, more knowledgeable, more developed, constantly and rapidly. And with this comes the natural evolution and expansion of the moral and ethical responsibilities associated with increased knowledge. The wild part, and this could be considered either a tangent or the most important point of my article (you can decide), is that the moral, ethical, and philosophical discussions of these matters seems to be the least societally and socially integrated into our education systems.

As individuals, we have not biologically or physically gained much in regards to ability and time in order to match the growth of responsibility-

we are becoming more aware as a body of bodies, but we are becoming relatively less able to fulfill and meet the call of duty as individuals.



Mark Whitacre (played by Matt Damon in The Informant!) informing authorities about the illegal price-fixing at his company. (Source, IMDB).

So far, the only way to survive this issue is to close our eyes to certain angles, and thus fake lack of responsibility over the domains we see but are not disciplined enough to control; so we blame the boss above us, we blame the assistant below us. It was the best I could do, in my given circumstances; I wouldn’t consider it moral, but I was following someone else’s command. A strong example of this is portrayed by Mark Whitacre (played by Matt Damon) in the 2009 film, The Informant!

And so, the conundrum.

For my genes want to live on, but my genes cannot manifest their greatest strengths in my lifetime if they will not be granted the freedom of time and work to do so.

If the conundrum is simplified into a binary (for temporary, analogical clarity only, as I really detest over-simplification for overall belief and knowledge), then on one hand I have success over my genes and utilize what they have provided me with in my lifetime, outputting work, ideas, projects, research, and writing which transform and progress society for the better; on the other hand my genes have success over me, and I work to foster and keep healthy the body in which the genes temporarily dwell, making the body and holistically healthful and beautiful as possible, finding the best match for mating, and then passing my genes on, in hopes that the next generation, and here is the kicker,

can somehow master both domains at once.

And isn’t that really what “we” have been pursuing?

Passing on the best of genes, so that more of us will be born and capable of mastering many domains at once? She was the most beautiful woman in the world, and also, it seems, the most intelligent, the most productive, the most minimal (her footprint was so low!), the most kind, the best mother, and the most altruistic to anyone she would pass on the streets.

We are becoming Machines of Madness: for our social and economic pyramids are becoming more and more specialized and hyper-focused as we, The Individuals, gather more and more broad bodies of information (via distributed, shared information networks). Our minds are becoming more generalized, while our economic machines are becoming less, all within a global environment which has disincentivized the artistic, philosophical, and theological lenses through which to view multiple pyramidal structures at once.

We, the Machines of Madness, are forced to sit back and watch (though simultaneously do so according to our own volition), the great shoveling up of our worlds into grave-sites which we will, perhaps in time, semi-willingly, with one eye closed, slide into.