This is a concept which has rattled around in my brain for a while now and which has come to the fore recently.

At the end of the day, "privilege" as I have seen it used in popular culture is too simplistic. There are many facets to it.

From my life story, I can sketch a portrait which suggests a lack of (many forms of) privilege or the alternative.

Anti-Privilege: I grew up in a rural part of state in the US to parents who by no means were well to-do. While we didn't have noteworthy scarcity, we also didn't have 'nice' things. The cars each parents had were late model at the time. If we took family vacations they were to local destinations. The house I grew up in could probably be purchased for under $70k USD (hard to pin down since it there's no Zillow estimate). Since we weren't rolling in money, I worked a manual labor job at close to full-time during high school.

Pro-Privilege: I didn't want for anything growing up. While we had tame tastes, we could afford the things we needed. We were able to purchase a home computer in the mid-90s. Buying back-to-school clothes was possible, although it wouldn't include anything fancy. Both of my parents, either directly or indirectly through family, owned (small) local businesses. Both parents cultivated a culture of learning in the house, despite neither having done anything more than a few classes at a local community college. Through wise investments, my maternal grandfather was able to help supplement my full-time work to get through state college loan free.

Anti-Privilege: My father passed when I was a young child and my mother needed to support us with Social Security Death Benefit + lower than median wages.

Pro-Privilege: I am white and in generally good health. Due to intrinsic and cultivated habits and capabilities, I have been able to build a well paying career in a relatively stable profession (tech, broadly construed).

Anti-Privilege: I did go through 6-8 years of being clinically depressed during my teenage - young adult years.

The net/net:

- Race: Privileged. Whites are privileged in the US. I could be worse off here.

- Class: Unprivileged. I would peg myself as around median for the US, or maybe slightly below growing up.

- Economics: On the margin but probably unprivileged. I was raised in a high working / low middle class, it could be worse. There are elements of privilege. I could be worse off here, but I'd guesstimate that it's below median.

- Health: About median by any definition, but could definitely be worse off here so let's call it privileged.

- Mental capabilities: Definitely privileged. Honors / AP classes in (an admittedly crappy) public school. A university that most have heard of, although still a state school. Elements could have been better but overall, the Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance style thought experiment would net out that I am above median here.

- Generational: Privileged. I grew up during a boom time for the US (90s). I attended college from 2003-2007 so just at the beginning of the rapid inflation of the price for a degree. I graduated in 2007 which was certainly a much better time to graduate than the following year.

There are a bunch of pro-privilege assessments here but it seems incredibly weird to me to envision the life I've lived as being 'privileged'. But that's ultimately how privilege works, an unearned credit which silently lifts your prospects and buffers you from random chance decimating your chance at living a fulfilling life.