Birthday XVI.

As you may know, since my first year of college at UChicago, my birthday has included a ritual discussion among friends of answers to questions that are once silly and yet serious. This past Monday, 13 wonderful people added their own experiences to what is becoming a living tradition. (This year's ritual was fascinating from a ritual-studies standpoint, since it is the first year that no participant in the ritual had previously participated in it.)

Yet when there is so much that we need to do in the world, what justifies what seems like such a frivolous exercise? A value of the dinner-and-questions ritual that I aim continually to actualize is that in it a group of people (some strangers to each other) become created into a community that can imagine alternative futures for their lives and the world. Such imagination has become increasingly important to me as a disposition and intentional practice absolutely necessary to sustain one's resistance to structures of oppression and one's pursuit of the Beloved Community.

Feel free to add your own answers in the comments. (In terms of the questions themselves, feel free to ignore the parenthetical disclaimers if they are distracting. With them I was trying to hedge against aspects of the questions' phrasing that were politically problematic.)

1. If you had the power to prevent one thing (product, service, idea, identity) from being available, purchasable or otherwise obtainable on any market (formal, informal, or even government-only) anywhere, what you remove and why?

2. If you were guaranteed that your whole life-work would lead to the permanent elimination of one form of cultural violence (roughly understood as the disvaluing or degrading of the lifeworlds/lifeways of individuals or communities such that they are denied the full power of cultural creativity, participation, or transmission), what form of violence would you work to undo and for the sake of what community(ies) would you pursue this work?

3. If you could instantly and permanently eliminate one fear that has held you back from pursuing / living out / performing one of your dreams, for what dream would you choose to be liberated from this fear? (Note: this question requires you to identify both a fear and a dream, but you only have to name aloud the dream.)

4. If you were to spend three years of your life deeply immersed in a community of which you are not currently part, with which you could have no further communication after the three years, but whose stories (at least what you learned during the three years) it will be your life’s work to tell, with what community would you dwell and why? (Assume, for this question, that your entrance into, participation in, and story-telling out of this community are all accomplished in liberationally appropriate and anti-imperialist ways, with a clear sense of being authorized and sent by the community to tell its story.)

5. If you had the power to institute a ceremony/ritual celebrating one kind/form of interpersonal relationship which would have the sanction of widespread social and legal acceptance, what relationships would you have celebrated/ritualized, what expectations/obligations/identities (if any) would the celebration/ritual assign to these relationships, and why? (You can specify or not specify the number and configuration of persons, as well as the basis of the relationship.)

6. If your life up until now were made into a movie, what music (vocal, instrumental, other) would be playing at the climactic scene of the film’s plot (which may very well be different from the climactic scene of your life-story itself) and what would be happening in the scene? (Assume whatever you want about the purpose of this film and/or the relationships among “truth,” “narrative,” “plot,” “representation,” and/or “fiction.”)

7. If, instead of the person presently understood to have first “said” some important or significant quotation or statement, you were the original sayer, what quotation or statement would you want to be attributed (attributable) to you and why?

[At the dinner itself we discussed questions 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7.]