The Math was supposed to be a title of a column for which I grossly underestimated the research. In its short run of two editions on Pinoytuner, I proposed to do a very sober count of gateshares, seating capacities, recording costs, etc. – in other words, the numbers that added up to independently producing and distributing music.
What got in the way of that was, as always, the math of my own life. It should be a bigger problem that cultural workers are still the only people relied upon to document the existence of culture, and yet we end up so caught up with the business of existing (i.e. paying the bills) that we are unable to fully commit to the task.
This is on my mind now because it’s April, which means my annual health insurance tab is on its way.
I signed up for an annual plan because I knew I would only be overwhelmed by an additional slip of paper to account for every month. More or less, my fixed expenses are rent (11,000), gas (2,000<), cell phone service (500-1,500), and utilities (500 for electricity and water). Things are a little more flexible when it comes to food, which falls within a range of around 500 to 1,000 a week, and that includes the cats.
I could need another expense column altogether when it comes to my pets. I only have one dog and I've had her for ten years. The cats though–because of all my cats, I have a binder full of receipts and other such medical records which I refuse to go through because the amount I've spent on them might just depress me. On the other hand, I had that much to spend on them despite not having full-time employment, and I guess that's something?
Then there are the unforeseen expenses – trips to the vet, cute shit I spotted, things I can't let go, friends who need help covering their own expenses, nights out that I can't say no to because I have the worst FOMO.
My situation is not really exceptional. Not a lot of people working in the arts have full-time jobs; however, a lot of people working in the arts come from the same middle to upper classes, which should also give a good idea not only of who gets to call themselves "artists", but who gets to make art and the kind of art that gets made. If art mirrors social concerns, then this is definitely a big problem.
– – –
Before I let go of the guardrail that is full-time employment and stable income, I signed up for all the things I knew I would be denied as a freelancer. I made sure to have a fairly comprehensive insurance plan, a US visa, and separate bank accounts for the things I needed and the things I might want, among other kinds of financial tools that would keep me afloat so that I could eventually work where I wanted and with whom I wanted to work with, rather than work for.
It did not happen overnight, in fact, it took close to a decade of planning, beginning from the moment I left Ateneo and realized my private school tuition for one semester could cover four years at UP and then some. In my dad's words: I received kickbacks from what was meant to pay for college; the way I see it, I saved us all close to a quarter of a million pesos (which is an insane amount to pay for education and, like art, tells us something about who gets to be educated, but that's another topic altogether).
Despite working in fashion and visual art – fields associated with excess – I am not the type to splurge. Except for underwear and hosiery, very few of my clothes are bought brand new. This has also taught me a lot about the strange geography of the city: because Manila doesn't do curated vintage, the used clothes go where the "garbage" goes. I did not realize how much of our income goes into clothing our selves until a friend told me about having to hide her credit card because her bill had already gone over a hundred thousand. We were both 23 at the time and overhauling our wardrobes to fill the demands of corporate life. But while her bills were in the six-figures, I only felt the burden of how I was supposed to store what I'd accumulated from other people's castoffs.
That was my third job, though. Three or four more jobs later, depending on how you count, the only thing I'm sure of is that I would not have been able to sustain this lifestyle without having been born into it. While my siblings and I didn't grow up in a wealthy household, we did not have to know what it meant to scrape by. There was always a good support system. Add to this that my sister and I did not attend the kinds of private schools that would have put us in even closer proximity to the myriad ways in which we could be found wanting.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around all these other numbers: the passport number I key in when I'm traveling, seat assignments, calories consumed…this morning, I texted my friend Kathy saying I couldn't shake off the sadness that comes with not knowing what we will and will not regret once we lose control of our bodies. Our friend Luis has been in the hospital for the past four months, and last night was the first time I visited him and our friend Mick, his girlfriend.
I hate hospitals and I hate that we don't have a lot of options when it comes to repairing our bodies or caring for our health. "What do we do, Kathy? Do we eat less sugar and live less so we can stay healthy? Once you're hospitalized, do you regret all the fun you had?"
"Let's just live our lives tapos bahala na, hahaha!" she replied.
My dad used to say "you can't take it with you," referring to all the wealth, all the things you accumulate in a lifetime. I say "used to," because my dad is also a hoarder who loves shopping for things he doesn't actually need, opting for things that make him happy. What he "can't take" with him, once he goes, is a house full of old plates, hardwood furniture, woven mats, books, and other bits gathered on his travels–even if he rarely ventures anywhere new.
I'm thinking of what constitutes wealth now because of how crucial wealth is, materially and conceptually, in the business of sustaining life. Hospital confinement is expensive, even health insurance is expensive, and in order to get adequate coverage, many of us working in the more precarious fields–culture, art, academia, entertainment–need to consider skipping a meal or two. And at the end of it all, it's still impossible to predict what's going to happen. And once it’s happening, what other options are there but to paddle forward. All we can know is that we have one shot at living, just one; and that has been the subject of so many cheesy narratives in film, in Nicholas Sparks novels, in platitudes our parents pass on…I guess living is really all there is to do.
Alice Sarmiento 