Calibrating Entitlement Expectations

I believe that much of my socioeconomic station in life was not realized by my own doing, but was accidental or due to my being in the right place at the right time.

--Namit Arora, What Do We Deserve?

And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea
We are the ones we have been waiting for

--June Jordan, Poem for South African Women

Growing up in a farming/fishing village, where the nearest neighbor was three bends of the meandering creek away, or three hilltops on the mountain path away, or a decent downwind blow of the conch horn on a fair and sunny day, your first lessons on the wherefores of it all inevitably came from your parents.  By “all” I mean the incessant beginning and ending of life all around you, if you happen to be in a flourishing farm environment.

This would put you at a distinct disadvantage.  As a sentient and observant being, you knew that you as a child had been under the protective custody of your parents.  Your needs were being provided for by them.  You were sheltered from potential harm and the pain it usually entailed.  You were being taken care of by them.  Providing for your well-being was, prima facie, their utmost concern in life.

It however, begs one important question: what if you were not particularly thrilled at being alive?  What if you don’t particularly enjoy your lot in life?

I assert, contend and maintain that every person in this God’s Great Creation is legitimately entitled to only one thing, namely, why without being first consulted, you were brought into being?  Every parent owes it to his/her child at least an attempt at a coherent explanation.  Or, in the more esoteric formulation of Omar Khayyam,

XXIX 
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing 
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing; 
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, 
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing. 


XXX 
What, without asking, hither hurried Whence? 
And, without asking, Whither hurried hence! 
Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine 
Must drown the memory of that insolence! 

Above and beyond that one question, everything else is governed by societal mores, more subject to generational nuance than being cast in marble.  Admittedly, if we as a generation had created entitlement expectations much more than what we can reasonably deliver upon, then we as a generation had failed in our duty to hand down a world much better than we found and inherited from our parents.