As a rule of thumb, most people who continually repeat that they are strong individuals are most likely lacking in strength. It is akin to a person immersed in poverty saying that they are rich. For while they may well have been in the past, they are no longer and the remnants of wealth linger as an affliction really, the results of which is the incessant repetition of statements related to their personal wealth. Human nature is then very simple in this regard: anything often stated and said with fervent conviction should largely be suspect.
Consider the woman who continually speaks of the most amazing people she knows, a regular socialite who bounces from party to party. While it may be the case that she enjoys the company of such disagreeable creatures, what is more intriguing about this woman is the fact that she must let everyone know of what circles she runs, of who she knows and of what grandiosity she sees on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Her disease as it were, is a deep-seeded fear of poverty, of lacking, and while perhaps this manifests itself currently in her gabby, name-dropping nature, its roots lie in childhood poverty, inattentive parents, perhaps older siblings with whom she has continually had to fight for the limelight with. More often the case than not in my experience, this affliction however has arisen from a history with “having not”.
Consider too the veritable jokester, the constant “laugh of the party”. As anyone that has ever gotten to know a comedian or a person whose natural character bespeaks of humor, they are perhaps some of the most bi-polar and potentially nasty people to be around, their moods fluctuating wildly in the shadows, their persona tightly-managed when performing. It is not unreasonable to look at a historic lineup of some of the funniest individuals and find some of the most drugged up, alcohol-ridden, abusive and contemptuous characters one can imagine. But they make us laugh and graciously, the public takes the minutiae of time a comedian spends on stage, defines them by it, and when they pass, cherishes this fictitious memory through film clips, audio recordings and the like. “Did you know Person X? He was so funny,” we say.
We then can think of many such characters who claim to be one thing while in reality, often are just the opposite of what they claim. And as logic would have it, it is often the case that large groups of people such as nations or international organizations follow suit. The totalitarian nation that claims democratic virtues, the international organization that proclaims peace while underhandedly shoveling guns into opposing force’s hands, the political party which denounces social programs yet gladly accepts bail-outs.
On a more cynical day, one might believe that we are completely surrounded by those who claim to be one thing while in reality are just the opposite. Luckily, not all are cynics and it is easy enough to simply let people speak what they feel the urge to say, all the while fervently noting the realities of their actions.
When I really think about it, money has been at the root of most of the problems in my life. Really the lack thereof to be specific. Money is time as any good businessman knows. Time for those of us without money is usually marked by the number of hours we must work until we do not have to work. The week becomes a Monday to Friday, 9-5, so that I can then live the weekends and early evenings free. Free without work but with enough money to enjoy life, as much life as one can enjoy with the limited amount of time allotted to being “off”. Money for employers is that which is used to buy the time of x number of workers for x number of hours. A small business owner may think to herself, “This month I can afford 3 workers to work varying shifts during my store’s business hours from 7-7:00. If x amount of dollars are made by x date I may be able to employ 2 more workers who will then help my business bring in x more amount of dollars.” This is basic business sense but it is clear that working then, and money, is a transaction of time. I often think were I not to be in constant need of money I would very easily find creative ways in which to spend my time, most likely devising my own manners of making money through a basic entrepreneurial spirit that seems to have been with me since birth. But as it is, often when I do have time off I am thinking of how little money I have, marking it out over a calendar and figuring out quite quickly that the little money that I have will only be good for one or two more weeks. This omnipresent anxiety is well-known to anyone who has, at some point, been “hard up” as it were and forgo listening to anyone who begins to romanticize the state of poverty for it is either the case that they have never truly been hard up or they are complete lunatics with no real grasp of the consequences of not eating for three days in a row. Perhaps then they are fed institutionally and you have just happened to meet them on their “day off” from Ward X.
I think that maybe the most chilling of events is the moment you wake up to a bustling street, no money and no where to go. It is really and truly the existential burden of having to wake and say to oneself, “And what will I make of today?” Although laden with great possibility to be certain, there are simply days when one wakes up and does not want to be faced with the crisis of creating one’s path. Some such mornings have ended with me bounding outside unwashed, greeting the day with a smile as it were and not surprisingly finding much success. I believe this is accountable to the exuberance displayed and the consequent feeding frenzy that it causes, those one interacts with feeding off of the positive “vibe” like endorphin fiends. Occasionally I look skywards and think that in moments of such success, usually occurring at the most opportune and on-the-brink spiritual crises, there is someone or something looking out for me. There are other mornings, however, when with a grunt I merely turn over and go back to bed. This is perhaps the worst thing one can do in these circumstances for when the day begins when most people’s days are winding down, it takes a veritable army to beat back the resulting malaise. These days are blurry, usually wiped from my memory and to mark them, I enter an over-sized question mark on that particular day in my calendar. On elongated periods of dreariness, the month emerges as a spattering of unanswered interrogatives. I refer to these months as hibernations. Others might refer to them as bouts with serious depression. But the last thing one is concerned with when one is in that state is the category to which other’s use to describe one’s approach, or lack thereof, to life.
