For over a decade, I’ve been filling my water bottle at the same sink in Otonabee College. I use this sink maybe four or five times a week if not more. I first came to Trent in 2013 and have been a student or staff member in some capacity since. The sink is much like any other, I suppose. This sink is not fancy nor imposing, and I’m sure many people walk past it daily without a second glance. 

It’s set off to the side of a bustling landing that functions as an entry to the college and provides access to many different parts of the college. At first glance, there is not much going on in this space. You’ll find a copy machine, a departmental office, and hallways that branch off to adjacent seminar rooms. There are also a handful of computers for students or anyone brave enough to attempt navigating the labyrinth that is known as printing. I couldn’t begin to estimate how many times I have walked down this hall, past the sink and thought nothing of my surroundings. 

On the wall behind the sink, just to the right of my eye-line there is a sign that reads “‘A CAPITALIST NIGHTMARE’ BY JERONIMO 1974”. For years, as I filled up my water bottle, I would think of how the simple act of refilling a water bottle was indeed a capitalist nightmare. By reusing my water bottle, I was no longer participating in capitalism. I didn’t need to purchase a bottle of water from the campus dining hall or vending machine. 

The sign was correct in this small way: just through the act of refilling my water bottle, I was breaking free, I was no longer a cog in the machine. Approximately four to five times a week, I would imagine breaking from capitalistic structures through this simple act. Then, on a day much like any other, I looked at the rest of the wall, on which was mounted a rather complex metal sculptural art piece. It finally occurred to me, the attribution on the wall was providing information about the artwork, not my small act of rebellion. 

The plaque had nothing to do with me at all.  

Not being much of an artist myself, I fear any description of the art I could provide may be paying the piece a disservice. The artwork was presumably made of found or scrap metal pieces which, when observed individually wouldn’t look like much—some cogs, washers, pitchforks, and what I imagine to be pieces for a car or motor—but when these pieces were put together, they looked intentional, and took the form of people or figures (again, I’ll admit, an art expert I am not). 

Together, these pieces made up “A CAPITALIST NIGHTMARE”. Admittedly, I felt a bit silly upon making the discovery. For years, I had been so focused on my own world, and my own small acts of “activism” (if you could call them that) that I couldn’t see the obvious artwork right in front of me. This was art I had seen hundreds of times, but it took me over ten years to connect the attribution to the piece of art, or in fact see it at all. 

My daily water refills were no longer a small act of rebellion. I wasn’t wrenching money out the pockets of large corporations’ by forgoing the purchase of bottled water or the like. I was just someone who couldn’t see beyond the end of my own nose. 

Here is the thing I keep coming back to. I like the idea that our choices matter. I like a reusable bottle. I like skipping plastic when I can, even if the vending machines keep humming like very patient slot machines. 

But the part of me that loves a tidy moral also knows that capitalism is pretty good at selling us the feeling of resistance while leaving the storefront open. Buy the eco-friendly version. Scan your rewards card. Smile at the sustainability poster next to the fridge of branded water. I was congratulating myself for standing outside the system while standing directly inside it, surrounded by printers and artwork that was literally trying to tell me something.

In the end, my water bottle was never the radical revolutionary tool I liked to imagine. The artwork on the wall was never praising me for skipping the vending machine. It was simply sitting there, loudly critiquing the system while I walked past it for over a decade without once really seeing it. 

Maybe that is the actual capitalist nightmare, and maybe the antidote is something far simpler and far less glamorous: slowing down enough to look around, to pay attention, to question what we’ve accepted as neutral. We become comfortable with the illusion of resistance, and we convince ourselves that consuming slightly differently is the same as pushing back. I would like to think there is still something quietly rebellious in the moment I finally looked up and noticed the art, the space, and the limits of my own assumptions. 

If my water bottle will not topple any corporations, then maybe paying attention will at least unsettle the autopilot they depend on. Honestly, that feels like a small revolt worth keeping.