A Chippy and a Food Bank
Is this an example of Taoism Zen non-duality or not? Let’s have a look.
I wrote this in January 2021. The world was coming out of Covid and things were tight for a lot of people. I subsequently forgot all about it, but it has never seemed so relevant. So here it is.
Let me take you back…
As a welcome break halfway through a freezing walk — my family and I had decided, probably insanely, to go on to Margate (south-east England) in January — we stopped for fish and chips.
By this point, our faces were numb (the weather was too cold) and our beloved hands were losing all feeling. We had decided to forego our usual takeaway fish and chips because we were afraid we would die of exposure before we got to eat any, but as we approached the place, we got a welcome surprise.
A sign had been erected, in the usual hand(ish) drawn chalk and blackboard style of said establishment just a little distance from the invitingly, steam-covered window. On the sign were the three sweetest words in the English dictionary: Indoor. Seating. Available.
Having ordered at the counter, we were given a napkin. Written on it there were directions and a door code to this new, God-sent, indoor seating area. As promised, there it was, ‘down beside the Indian, with the lights on and tables inside.’ I frantically, and somewhat foolishly, took my hand from my knitted mitten to hold the napkin map (or mapkin if you like) in my shaking hand and attempted to decipher the code thereupon.
It didn’t work.
My Guardian Angel enters
‘The last figure is a “Z” not a “2”
said a kindly voice from behind me. ‘Happens every time.’
I turned and thanked the smiling old man who was looking down upon me like a benevolent god (he wasn’t a giant, nor was I incredibly short, the door lock was down about knee height for some reason, so I had to crouch to see the digits). Finally, the door opened, and the sweet, sweet warmth enveloped us.
Before long, I had to brave the icy wind once again to collect our order. I paid by card not bothering to wait for him to tell me how much, just over a tenner, I think. It was hot, fresh and delicious. Honestly, it’s one of the best places we know to get fish and chips.
So, there we were enjoying our salty, vinegary, fishy chippies. We watched the people blowing by outside, icicles hanging from their noses, while we gobbled our well-deserved hot meal. Then, I saw him again. My guardian angel, the old man who had helped me decipher the fish-and-chip guy’s terrible handwriting.
He was coming out of an identical unit just across a very narrow alley from the one in which we were sitting.
As he emerged, I got a fleeting glimpse of what looked like the most cramped and overstocked corner shop in the universe. There were cans of food stacked ten high on shelves from ceiling to floor. My eyes strayed to boxes I had missed sitting outside the shop full of fruit and veg, I can only assume stuff that needed to be kept frozen. The sign outside explained all: it was a community shop/foodbank organization. It said it sold goods at a very low price for people who needed them.
Here comes the paradox
It got me thinking, as I reached that point when eating fish and chips when you really should stop but don’t. It got me to thinking that these two shops being side by side were a bit like in Time Cop where Jean-Claude Van Damme is warned not to touch himself (his other self). A bit like that, not really, I suppose.
What I mean is, these are two things that shouldn’t co-exist in the same universe.
On the one hand, you have a business that exists to mostly sell fairly nutritionally bereft food at a pretty high markup (chips, I have no beef with fish) for the purpose of enjoyment; and the other exists to help people who can’t even afford to pay full price for beans and tea. Okay, maybe I’ve overstated both, but in that case, one or other or both establishments shouldn’t exist, or is a sham, or a ruse, or…I don’t know just plain wrong. Or maybe I’m wrong. It just made me think.
Or is it?
Re-reading that, makes me think of something Alan Watts wrote in The Way of Zen, which I’m reading at the moment (an interesting read which I will review in due course). Now, before I say what I’m thinking here, I just want to start by saying I am slightly misrepresenting what Watts meant here.
But the idea, in a nutshell, is that there has to be poor in order to be rich. Let me explain.
Two sides of a coin
One of the central ideas in Zen (from Taoism really), according to Watts, is that:
all ideas like good and evil, dark and light, up and down; they exist together or not at all, and also both.
The important thing is that these things are simply ideas in the first instance, concepts if you will, that have no inherent value except that which we give them.
The important thing is to let go of seeking to be happy all of the time, or free from pain because these are relative concepts. There can be no happy without sad, therefore sadness is happiness and happiness is sadness, they are inseparable as a front and a back, or two sides of a coin. Such is my interpretation of the ideas so far. But as is said so often about Zen, the best way of describing it is using no words at all.
Does this non-dualism work here?
Can we then say this is true between rich and poor? Nominally, of course, there is a difference. Rich people have more resources with which to make themselves comfortable, safe and fed than do poor people. Also, there’s the fact that there’s a continuum between rich and poor, but this is true too of light and dark.
I think the trouble I have with this line of thinking is from a sociological rather than a philosophical perspective. It’s very ‘conservative’ to say that you can’t have the rich without the poor. At least when it could be said that some people have to work for less so the rich can have their massive dividends and mansions. For the record, I think a more equitable society is possible, just maybe not with the current systems.
Cold philosophy
From a purely philosophical viewpoint however, I think it still holds water. Rich and poor are ideas. They are man-made delineations in a universe that doesn’t care about such things. And being opposites, you can’t have one without the other.
If everyone was rich then there would be no rich, and there would be no poor. Actually from a sociological perspective that sounds pretty good too. I recently listened to The Diary of a CEO podcast (ironic, right!) in which Sam Harris seemed to suggest AI could, if we play our cards right, make this a reality.
Reality bites
It is hard to write about this when people are suffering.
I think this is an important conversation to have and needs to be handled in an open and honest way. However, this brings little comfort to people who have to visit a food bank to make ends meet, with all the emotions that come along with that.
While having to look at those of us who are better off stuffing our fat faces full of fish and chips (alliteration unintended but very pleasing) through a glass door, with an access code, across a very narrow alley.
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