#17 Selfishness as a skill (eng & fra)
How to stand your ground, from a Turkish soap opera
Dear readers, thank you so much for being here. Today’s tale is about the skill of selfishness, or how learning to put oneself first can help become a better person overall. I hope you like it and if you do, please forward it to your loved ones!
Here is where to further discover my work:
My podcast and book “The rules of the Game” about being a woman at work.
My podcast about how to invest one’s savings “The Starter Pack” (Fra)
Turkish series got me. I’ve spent the past weeks harnessed to one of them, watching hours of Ottoman Empire tribulations, in Turkish, and Portuguese subtitles, on Youtube, and still recovering. I wish I could tell you how good a show it is. But I can’t. The pitch is excellent though: the ascent of Kösem, true historical figure, a former slave who becomes the favorite and wife of Ahmed Ist, then turns into the most powerful woman of the Ottoman Empire during a period History remembers as the “Sultanate of Women”. Unfortunately the show is not so good. The scenario is random, the dialogues minimalist - “Don’t go Ahmed!” “I must.” -, the set was borrowed from a unicorn show for 5 year-olds next door, it’s “Dallas” meets “The thousand and one nights”, it’s actually quite bad but so much so that it becomes good and I am not ashamed at all.
Kösem’s character is basically a counter mirror to everything this NL is about and sometimes the message is even clearer that way: here is Kösem, wild adolescent living happily on her greek island, stolen from her loving family to enter Sultan Ahmed’s harem where her ascent to power begins thanks to… her beauty. Kösem is beautiful, perfect looking at all times, her brains help her to the top but it is her looks that change her destiny. Kösem needs permission. She speaks when allowed, she moves when allowed, she exists when allowed. And Kösem waits, a lot. She waits for Ahmed to come back from hunting, she waits for Ahmed to come out of the counsel room, she waits for Ahmed to call her to his apartments.
I could question me being hooked to a show that is such a clear insult to my feminist convictions, but that would take me to the continent of the construction of genders and how we learn where the sexual tension is supposed to lie, how deeply engrammed it is in us even when we believe to be free, and as I have other plans for today let me just acknowledge that I am a being of contradictions.
Because there is something more about Kösem than her prettiness in waiting, where her true power and freedom lie and that actually makes her really interesting:
Kösem is selfish. She does her things.
She retroactively justifies everything she does out of love for Ahmed and the defense of the Kingdom, but the truth is she is driven by her desires only - the conquest of power. She plots to appoint a new counselor because it serves her interests, she goes out to give money to the poor in order to make her popularity rise even though a civil war almost breaks out because of it, she marries her daughter 7 times, makes alliances with bandits, corrupts ministers.
Kösem does her things. She lives in a world of very limited space but makes sure to explore it thoroughly, both physically and metaphorically.
She has shit to do you see, for herself, and she takes the time, dedicates the effort.
It’s not pretty but it’s survival.
Not at all doll-like.
I like that about her because this is where I can start to relate.
One does not need to experience the “eating or being eaten” daily life in a harem to understand how a dose of selfishness is what allows to exist, sometimes survive, if only metaphorically. To keep floating in a sea that says that caring, lowering one’s voice, not taking too much space, is by default what being a woman means.
There is a right to selfishness.
There is a right to defend one’s interest over one’s team’s at work, there is a right to say “I am going away this weekend”, there is a right to not caring and there is a right to take the time and dedicate the energy to things we want to do, just because that’s what we want to do.
Following one’s desires, the most difficult thing, the most vital thing.
Selfishness is what creates space, and time, creativity and vitality. Selfishness is the pursuit of pleasure and joy. Selfishness is a curiosity compass and it is where the adventurous and the unknown can arise.
Selfishness is the shield against the routine / pre-chewed life monsters that eat alive any creature who falls asleep. Selfishness maintains awake.
Actually more than a right, selfishness is a skill.
It is a skill that can be learnt and trained. It does not come naturally, it takes a conscious effort to ask oneself “what do I want from this job?”, “where can it take me?”, “how can I make sure my work and efforts are seen?”, “am I about to burn out?”.
It is a skill to unlearn and accept to not be the perfect colleague, the caring one, the “everyone’s wellbeing is my mission” one, the “don’t worry about me” one.
There is a territory out there that is yours. It is called the “territory of self” and only selfishness can take you there, if and whenever you want to go. Before coming back.
It’s not pretty but it’s vital.
Now on your saddle and off you go!
Clara
French version ici!
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