I once briefly dated a guy who lived from hand to mouth. He got by on about $600 a month, mostly donated by friends who thought he was a starving genius. Literally he never knew at the beginning of the month whether he’d have enough to make it to the end without going hungry.
He was also a mega-slob. But he always said that if he someday had enough money to live in a nice place he was sure his “naturally clean self” would keep it impressively neat and spotless.
At the time, I lived in a house that was tiny but a gem. I’d bought it from a young architect who’d remodeled it for himself and his family and it was a work of love. Mr. Naturally Clean Self would come over and after an hour it would look … well, just like his place. Grime on the counters. Cabinet doors left open. Jackets and shoes discarded in the middle of the floor, furniture askew.
Now I realize some people just aren’t into keeping a tidy house, and that’s dandy. But I laughed at his self-delusion.
He also believed that someday he’d be famous and fabulously wealthy as an author. But of course, he never put a word down on paper — while at the same time he wouldn’t think of holding an actual job or doing freelance work because that would disrupt his spiritual and creative flow.
This relationship didn’t last too long (surprised?). But it was … instructive.
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Have you ever driven across an Indian reservation and (sorry if this sounds something-ist, but with rare exceptions it’s true) noticed how ill-kept most of the houses are?
I imagine there are lots of reasons for that. Maybe the housing is provided by the fedgov so there’s no individual pride of ownership. Maybe it’s a cultural thing. But nearly everyone will tell you it’s because of “poverty.”
Of course it’s not just on reservations. There are plenty of houses like that in other places, though even in the poorest neighborhoods, you’ll see some houses whose lawns are mowed and whose yards are clean right next to places with yards full of trash.
That’s “poverty,” too. Yet the same poor people who can’t afford a $20 trip to the landfill can spend hundreds a month on cigarettes.
Our local rescue group used to regularly get calls from a woman who “couldn’t afford” any medical treatment for the dogs and cats she kept producing, but who — in addition to smoking like the proverbial chimney — often sported fresh, pricy new tattoos.
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I was recently talking to a person who suffered through a natural disaster and said that the worst part wasn’t losing everything; the worst part was that nobody helped. Once the media had departed and the charities had left their gift cards, there was no neighborliness, just crumbling and decay — not only of the buildings, but of relationships. There were no friends extending helping hands.
Again, there could be boundless reasons for that. But one that this person cited was poverty. His neighborhood was below the poverty line and people had all they could do (and in some cases more than they could do) just to get by.
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A certain type of intellectual has always blamed poverty for all the problems of the miserable poor. Crime, drug addiction, broken families — all caused by poverty.
More recently there have been psychological studies claiming to prove that merely being or even feeling poor leads to bad judgment, which leads in turn to deeper poverty. I haven’t studied the studies up close so I don’t know how accurate they are. Certainly being poor and desperate can lead people to do poor, desperate things like run up unpayable debts in the name of trying to get ahead or just stay even.
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But “poverty” is just another half-assed pat answer that answers nothing. My friend Joel is poor. He’s at least as bad off as Mr. Naturally Clean; worse, just counting (lack of) dollars. Yet in other ways he has a life of abundance — abundant freedom, abundant time (when not shoveling horse poop or hauling trash for neighbors), abundant friendships, and an abundant support network that’s made up of some people nearly as poor as he and some who could, given a few different choices, be the sort of self-satisfied suburbanites who’d look down their noses at a smelly old one-legged hermit like Joel. (P.S. “smelly” is his own description and trust me, it’s exaggerated.)
I’ve been poor myself for most of the last 20 years. I’m less poor right now, which is very nice. I like it and I thank you for your efforts this week to make me even less poor (until it’s time to pay the roofer). But even when my monthly income rivaled Mr. Naturally Clean’s, I had a great life and managed to be surrounded by great beauty, great friends, great supporters, and great thoughts. If you’ve been around a while you’ve heard me refer to myself as the richest poor person I know.
The communities I’ve lived in have hardly been prosperous. They’ve ranged from a desert hermitage where we all camped in a bunch of hot, dusty trailers, to a noisy small-town neighborhood where my immigrant neighbors and I often had to communicate more by smiles and gestures than via a common language.
Yet always there were people who lived in squalor while other people, no less poor, lived with pride and contentment.
And always — always — people helped each other. When a mind-bendingly awful winter storm hit our area in 2007, friends and neighbors, both prosperous and poor, were immediately in touch with each other: “Are you okay? Do you need anything?” Sometimes they helped others while helping themselves. The local scrap metal guy was out while the wind was still gusting, picking up giant sheets of shredded metal roofing and trailer siding that could have become deadly missiles but were money in his pocket.
One neighbor farther up in the hills from me spent three days clearing downed trees from the road (and believe me, you could barely even tell there was a road there, the blowdown had been so catastrophic). Technically it was the county’s responsibility, but waiting for the county wasn’t going to help him — or the other people who lived out there. Firewood scroungers cleared vast sections of forest road long before the county ever got there. And if you’ve lived in areas like this you know that scrap metal collectors and firewood scroungers aren’t the most prosperous citizens.
“Poverty” — the objective state of not having a pot to piss in — has nothing to do with poverty — the choice to live unpleasantly.
Being poor — as in not having money — has nothing to do with thinking poor — as in being so downbeat you can’t see opportunities to live well and do good.
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Continued tomorrow or Monday. Promise. Right now I have a festival and parade to go to.
Thank you, Claire. I’m poor right now, but what blessings I have!
“Being poor — as in not having money — has nothing to do with thinking poor — as in being so downbeat you can’t see opportunities to live well and do good.”
Once upon a time (when I was a kid) many poor people were unwilling to admit they were poor, and many others didn’t _know_ they were poor. They lived through the Depression and then WWII, and afterward many just rolled up their sleeves and worked themselves out of “poverty” and want, and into the middle class. (BTW, it was sociologists ― not to mention socialists ― who insisted on classifying people; the bulk of Americans just worked and planned for the future, and didn’t know they were unhappy until somebody told them so ― from the 60s on.)
My parents would have been humiliated to admit they needed food or clothing, or money to buy furniture, or help to pay their bills. (In fact they were somewhat snobbish against the truly poor; having worked their way “up” to the middle class, they felt that others should be able to also.)
I think it was the work ethic that helped expand the middle class in the 50s. But when that “ethic” ceased to be prevalent (thanks in part to government interference and social laws), many people began to lose their desire for, and pride in, self-sufficiency.
I have lived in a few neighborhoods, some poor, some not so poor. The root cause is laziness. In some cases it is the ordinary “don’t feel like it” laziness; in most it is a willful, mulish, slack-ethic that not only drags the individual into poverty, but everyone that the slacker comes in contact with. This second type is the person who never has the money to have a pipe fixed and never has the time to fix it, but has time to watch maury on daytime cable TV. It is the person who puts chrome wheels on a mid 1990s clunker that barely runs. It is the person who will walk around all day begging door to door, but won’t pick up a shovel and do an hour’s honest work.
I suppose it can be summed up as:
Poor is a state of finance. Poverty is a state of mind.
Drugs, crime, broken families cause poverty. Not being held accountable for actions causes it too.
A few weeks ago one of my coworkers was in a panic because she didn’t have enough to pay rent. She said she was already 2 months behind and was sure she was going to be evicted.
The reason she said she didn’t have the money was because her refridgerator broke. No, she hadn’t spent all that money on a new one. No, she hadn’t spent it trying to get her fridge repaired.
She spent it eating out. Every single meal.
I not only never occurred to her to buy things that wouldn’t need refrigerated, but she couldn’t even grasp the concept when I suggested it. In her mind, if it wasn’t a frozen dinner, it wasn’t food. Even canned soup wouldn’t do it for her.
I stopped feeling sorry for her at that point. I’ve fallen into the same trap too many times, where I’ve tried to help someone only to find their troubles were mostly self-inflicted. I don’t have the energy to waste anymore.
(Note: All typos are to be blamed on my typing this at midnight in the dark long after my sleepy pills kicked in.)
I feel like mindset is the big thing too. Cliche but “money won’t buy you happiness”, all that.
Always meet people who whine about driving a piece of crap car, yet they all seem to not take care of it and have it constantly covered in bird poop and dust outside and McDonalds wrappers and old soda bottles inside.
Accidently hit send to early but…yeah. People who can have some pride in what they have tend to be happier I’ve noticed, and it’s certainly worked for me.
Now and then I get to freelance in jobs that deal with the general public. I honestly think people get ruder each year that goes by. Wealthy or poor, really- finances have little to do with character. Personalities, lack of manners and just general respect of others seem to be going downhill whether money is involved or not. And it’s not generational either, I’ve seen it in all age groups. The entitlement seems to extend beyond just what you can do for them, it has morphed into expecting others to automatically accept their importance.
I was raised to treat others the way I would like to be treated. I really don’t remember hearing money being tied to it, either. I’m also part of the reuse, recycle, repurpose, keep it till it disintegrates (lol) generation – subsequent generations grew up in the “disposable era” and if that’s the thinking on objects then it would also ooze into their people skills as well.
One of my pet peeves is people in houses but don’t take care of them. They should realize how lucky they are, and treat it more respectfully……
[Poor is a state of finance. Poverty is a state of mind.]
It might be less confusing to call the latter “squalor”.
I blame it all on Lyndon Johnson. It’s a terrible thing to be “helped” by the government. The former social pressures, like shame or pride, that motivate people to better themselves, all disappear; to be replaced by incentives (“entitlement mentality”) that cause people to remain slobs. Why work, after all?
In some cultures, any help at all, including personal, private help, is considered shameful, and an offer to help is thought an insult. This country used to be like that; read “Little Britches” and the subsequent books to see that mentality:
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Britches-Father-Were-Ranchers/dp/0803281781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407071077&sr=8-1&keywords=little+britches
I don’t think that was a bad way to look at things. A little help is like a little heroin.
One other factor is government “help” in employment. In the old days it was no problem at all to fire any employee on the spot. As a result there was little risk to hire people; an employer could take a chance on someone. How many people saw some work that needed doing, walked into a place off the street offering to handle that work for a price (cash), and got a desirable reputation and further work in the community thereby? That sort of thing is gone, thanks to the bleeding hearts and the welfare bureaucrats and the “employee protection” programs. We wouldn’t want people “exploited” now, would we?
I admit it, I hate the government. Everything it touches turns to shit.
“A little help is like a little heroin.”
It certainly can be, but sweeping generalizations are not usually very accurate. Not to mention that a “little heroin” might make the difference between life and death in certain circumstances.
Teaching a willing person to fish, instead of giving him fish, is still helping him. Just not enabling him to make poor choices. But there are those without the ability to fish with any amount of teaching, and each person must be free to decide for themselves whether that person is also worthy of being helped, even if they are not truly capable of returning value for value. You would probably “help” your invalid parents or even neighbors, because it is the right thing to do and benefits you as much as it does them.
“Help,” without the interpersonal relationship and accountability, is a serious problem – and there are two sources. One is obviously government, using that “help” as a hook and anchor to eliminate individual sovereignty. The other is the false altruism of so many who believe that they, and they alone, should and must determine what is good and right for everyone – even if they must kill them in the process. Two heads of the same snake.
It seems to be pretty much a common theme on this thread, but I think alchemist said is most succinctly “Poor is a state of finance. Poverty is a state of mind.” I’ve been broke, but I’ve never been impoverished.
I disagree with part of Paul Bonneau’s comment that “a little help is like a little heroin.” That’s true if the “help” comes from government, as he noted. But we’re social creatures and neighbors helping each other is as old as civilization itself. Barn raisings, community harvesting, bucket brigades to extinguish fires, etc., are salutary features of community life. Even (especially?) “hermits” such as Joel participate in them. As long as everyone is a “giver” as well as a “taker” (within his abilities, of course) we’re all the better for it.
“Poor is a state of finance. Poverty is a state of mind.”
Alchemist, I hope it’s ok, but I am so stealing that line!
“A little help is like a little heroin.”
It depends. There are ways of helping that don’t foster dependancy. The old principle of “don’t let the left hand know what the right hand is doing” has merit. If, for example, you know someone who is having trouble making ends meet, and you arrange for them to find a bag of groceries on their doorstep or an anonymous gift card in the mail, they can’t turn around and demand more because they wouldn’t know who to make that demand of. There are also barter arrangements that could be made, if the person is willing to put a modicum of effort into it.
I have been both the giver and the recipient in situations like that. The manner in which the help is given changes everything.
My mother always stated that just because you were poor was not an excuse to be filthy.
Our house was always spotless, the yard was always neat and tidy, our clothes were always washed and ironed, and we bathed every night-and we were dirt poor!
“The manner in which the help is given changes everything.”
Exactly. And the same can be said for the receiving side of it as well. There’s productive help and then there’s the opposite; there are leeches ready to suck all the help and good wishes out of the good intentions and then there are people who just need a temporary boost up.
It’s been my experience that the people who could really use some (real) help are rarely the ones who ask for it. You will never know how badly they could use it, they will never let you see it. They will crumble silently until something big happens and then you can’t miss finding it out. If I’ve learned anything in the past few years, I’ve learned how to observe better and actually ASK someone if they could use some help. So many times no one thinks to just offer it. And so many times people just can’t ask for it. I have never met anyone, not matter what their status in life, immune from disaster – especially in this day and age.
Some people are really good at figuring out when somebody needs help but won’t ask for it. I’m not so good at that, but I try.
When I was a kid, there was one Thanksgiving when my dad’s business was going under and we didn’t have enough for turkey. I know my mom, she wouldn’t admit to needing help, but somebody must have figured it out. We came out of church the day before Thanksgiving and found our car had been loaded full of groceries. Including the biggest turkey I think I’ve ever seen! Never did figure out who was responsible for that.
Turkey is still one of my favorite meals.
Later on I tried to do the same. I was working as a training coach at a company where everyone telecommuted. A week into one training class we found out that one of the new hires in the class had just had her husband run out on her the day before she started, and he’d emptied every bank account they had. We only found out because she was in a rush to change her direct deposit information before he grabbed that paycheck too. We weren’t allowed to do anything directly due to company policy, but one of the other coaches mentioned the woman’s hometown, and since there was only one person with her name listed in the phone book there, several of us sent anonymous gift cards for grocery stores in the area.
I’m at a nadir myself, right now. My truck is racing my body to see which one will break down first (Good news. The truck is winning!) What money I had I spent on investments that should pay off soon, but maybe not soon enough (No stocks, Ebay store inventory). I have a nice pile of work available to me but have had to put it off for either doctor visits or lack of transportation.
Face it. I’m broke if not broken. (A bit bent, maybe.)
Today, though, I had two friends offer me financial help and another had me over for dinner because, I’m sure, he was worried I might not have enough to eat. (No concern, I’m stocked up.) I know at least two other friends who would do the same if I were to let on just how rough a patch I’m in right now. Five friends. A whole handful.
I wouldn’t dare to call myself poor.
The fact is that, compared to the entire human population, I’m probably in the top 40% of the richest people in the world. How poor can I be if I can log on and communicate with half the world in a well lit room in a home with a stocked pantry? Not very. And how poor can I be when I’m surrounded by people who know me and can see that I’m a flawed human being who has made some poor decisions and yet they love me anyway? Again, not very. I’m rich. Damn right.
Of course, a little cash flow would be nice too.
Thanks for a timely and pertinent commentary, Claire. On point as always.
Poverty, people often mistake squalor for poverty. As Claire knows, I live in the UK and our generous benefits system pretty much make it hard to be truly poor. Despite it many choose to live in squalor. Most of this is, as others have pointed out, down to a preference for beer, fags, drugs and 24hr Jeremy Kyle, our Jerry Springer! As people they have ceased to be self motivated and prefer to rely on others to do everything. This attitude is fostered by the welfare state. It was never intended to, when it was set up it was meant to be a temporary support whilst people got themselves back into work. Now it is a life style choice!
I read Joels blog and he may be an old guy with one leg and little cash but he’s got the strength of character of a thousand of the idle layabouts who wouldn’t shovel manure even if it paid £50 per hour.
There are many people like Joel, an old chap by me supplements his state pension by growing plants and veg, selling them on a roadside stand. We sell some on our weekly market stall for him as well. He gets manure off us and insists on cleaning out a stall or two in exchange.
Despite him pushing eighty he also mows and edges the lawnsof three elderly neighbours of his, some a decade or so younger. One, a chap disabled in the Falklands war, really does need the help and recieves quite a bit from the village. The other two though make my blood boil. They are too unwell and poor to operate or own a lawnmower but both has sufficient cash and energy to walk to the bus to go into town to go to the pub.
Poor is not always connected to lazy but squalor more often is!
Ellendra wrote:
“Alchemist, I hope it’s ok, but I am so stealing that line!”
LOL
Sure. But if it starts to generate any serious money for you, I want a cut. 😉
Does the concept of Genteel Poverty still exist? I think it used to be a standard reference in English Literature from the Dickens era. Often a country squire that had enough to live comfortably but not enough for luxuries or true emergencies. I’d suggest many of our “poor” are actually in that category of genteel poverty versus true bone numbing poverty.
As an adult the closest to true poverty I’ve had was self inflicted. I was living alone, family in another part of the country. Left the paychecks to the famuly, had just enough cash flow to buy gas to get to work and a little groceries. Thank the Lord, I had freinds that let me live on their ranch in trade for some labor. Food was beans, rice, onions and ramen and greens that could be foraged. Meat was whatever I could shoot or catch or harvest from the side of the road. It was a good time, but tough on the sole.