Series (Poverty Chronicles)

Poverty Chronicles Pt. 4

“A couple of million here and there. What difference does it make?” (overheard comment made by senior executive 03.24.2011)

This comment is so far beyond my comprehension I merely note it in the hopes that someone, somewhere can explain it to me in the current economic climate afflicting the majority of the world’s peoples. I sit not fifteen feet from a board room filled with members of the company that easily make over 100,000 dollars a year. I am observer to a world I do not belong and having just wrapped the remains of their company-catered lunch for my dinner, I am baffled at the current state of affairs, two worlds divided in this case as neatly as a carpeted corporate hallway in the corporate headquarters. To reflect then upon poverty in this setting becomes altogether unsettling and significantly challenging. For this is not merely a state of poverty, not merely a poor body immersed in a world of wealth. It is something more, something leaning towards the insidious. I know I have no money, I know that most of those around me do (and likely in abundance). This is the physical nature of poverty only; the haves and the have-nots, the timeless tale of material inequalities. There is something though about being face-to-face and yet completely out-of-reach of wealth. I would like to note jealousy at this point, note that I do believe part of me longs to have this wealth and out of jealousy, there emerges a disdain for those that possess that which I cannot have. This is but one aspect. The other is the conscious or unconscious presentation that the wealthy make of their wealth: the designer clothing, expensive shoes, gaudy jewelry, relaxed and care-free lilts within their voices, structured and cryptic language, hairstyles created by some of the most prominent and successful hairstylists in New York City, the way in which they walk, feet encased in pointed stilettos slicing forward, confident, in no need of double-guessing. The raised heads, booming voices, chests extended: their bodies present confidence. But I will state here that these are generalizations. Of course these corporate men do not wear stilettos but instead substitute well-polished wingtips. And of course amongst themselves, those lower in the hierarchy display signs of submission to those above them. Confidence as group of higher executives is good for the group in public situations as it builds a cohesive whole and reinstates the pecking order amongst other corporate bodies (i.e. we are here, at this level, and do not forget that you are not here). But placed in a private corporate board room, divisions arise, pecking orders become clear, like vultures the corporate higher-ups pick at each other’s bones, all the while navigating well-worn avenues of relation (I will speak to you with reverence you who are higher up. I can get away with more towards you who are lower). These generalizations emerge through distance, the flaneur-persona I am born into once placed in my current position. They can only be preserved through this distance as one becomes bogged down with particulars when too close, too intimate, too entwined. And I would like to state that although my past bespeaks of overly-critical stances when it came to the corporate, I am now more intrigued than anything and it must be said that there are many very amiable, intelligent, and able people within the corporate structure. But, however amiable, the juxtaposition of wealth and lack thereof remains and remains more fervent than ever.

Slowly emerging now on my fourth day within the ecosystem of the corporate body is the eerie feeling that a knowledge is in danger of being lost. I believe this to be the state of poverty under assault by the prospects of money upon the horizon. The danger perhaps lies within the lackadaisical, within that of the comfortable. For if there is one thing of persistent poverty it is the constant activity of the mind in scheming of new ways to hustle to make a dollar (that is, if not impeded by large consumptions of alcohol or other-mindedness). This scheming loses its purpose when presented with the mind-numbing freedom that an abundance of money presents.

Poverty Chronicles Pt. 3

Immersed now in the corporate building of three world financial center with the recent acquisition of a temporary administrative assistant position, it seems strange to write of poverty. All around me there now exists signs of an overabundance of wealth. Through the  words of colleagues down the hall, within padded executive offices come voices speaking of luxurious business dinners, the latest and hottest New York shows, the trifles and tribulations that come with having too much money and too little to ponder such as minute stains on the corporate carpet, a chair that sits slightly too high, a computer that must be reset a few times a day, a window that needs washing, the complaints of self-inflicted time restrictions (Barbara said that she was going to come. Where is she? Can we call security? I don’t have time to wait!) and the resulting increase in levels of general stress that spread like wildfire from the top of the hierarchy downward.

One day, $.25 is all I can attribute to my name. The next, I am here, immersed in a world where I am still exceedingly poor and yet, something has changed, a weight has been lifted, access to things such as food, drinks, comfort exponentially increased. This again has something to do with vision, a shifting of the limitations we see ourselves within, the limitations that are both real (I can only buy a bag of chips today because I do not have enough money for a full meal) and imagined (events of importance created by oneself which then emerge as cause for discomfort or increased stress levels, self-inflicted). While I am in nearly the same monetary bind, I no longer feel the heavy constriction of lacking a means of survival, of wondering what will happen tomorrow. And so it is that time is affected. It is expanded. My vision no longer becomes of the day, the minute, the hour but becomes that of the week, the month. The future is a benefit of those with the means to look into the future, the present that of those both restricted to the worries and concerns of the day, the past something those of us excessively poor have no use for and that the rich seem to avoid or use as a means of bolstering their position should it be a positive past.

There is a release in knowing that payment is to come, that the time I must hold out now is limited whereas before it rolled out endlessly, the stone-studded expanse of a horizon I seemed I would never reach. This is both calming and anxiety-producing for on the one hand, my head and body tire of the constant worries related to money but on the other, there is a present-ness, a consciousness of each step throughout the day which I fear will be lost as money-troubles wane.

Solidarity and Legitimacy

I step onto the train and whereas before I feel camaraderie and solidarity with those I ride with (all of us in some manner immersed in monetary woes I tell myself), I now feel defensive, as if I should reach out and tell people that look at me, “I am only wearing this sports coat because of where I am going. I only wear these pressed trousers because they help me play the part. It is a costume and nothing more.” But I remain silent and I imagine a disdain directed towards me. This is likely not coming from anyone on the train. It is likely coming from myself. To be poor and feel oneself in solidarity with the millions of others who are poverty-stricken in America and across the world is a gift within the rough and tumble lifestyle of the tumultuous life of poverty. It is something which can be taken away, a feeling that exists only in a particular moment, in a particular time, dependent on a number of complicated and constantly-moving parts. One cannot feel this and truly understand it without having experienced poverty for an extended period of time or being currently immersed in it. It is because of this that others should not speak of the poor as if they were a topic for discussion. We have our own voice, quite particular, each unique, the state of being run through with commonalities which can be explored through some of the aforementioned points in Poverty Chronicles I and II. The question then becomes, “How poor is poor enough to speak of the poor?” and I do not have the answer to this question. What I can say is that as one speaks of the poor (and any other topic outside of oneself really) there is a feeling which arises in the heart, a warmth and quiet that is an indication of a genuineness, a true knowledge, a legitimacy. Alternatively should a feeling arise in the stomach or gut, a twisting turn, it is a sign that one should keep one’s mouth shut as one is literally “speaking shit”. This, I believe, happens often in our societies here in America and around the world and will no doubt persist for as long as human beings exist.

Relativity of Wealth

The relativity of wealth emerges as a complication as I see my monetary problems easing in the future. Whereas before it was quite simple to state, “So and so has the ability to buy a pair of jeans or flippantly buy a full meal at a sit-down restaurant and therefore have money,” a new complication emerges: money, once obtained, never fulfills a purpose of meaning. More is always needed, any amount is never enough. There is then an ease in working to the bottom. Somehow knowing I have $10 to my name and that this $10 must last me for 3 days has a much more fulfilling purpose to it. There is an anxiety in having excessive amounts of money and this is the anxiety of want. One then seems trapped in a cycle of anxieties, that is until one can devise a way to avoid entering into the cycle in the first place, transcending these complications to experience the wider view of the world, the “big picture” so often referenced and so little actually seen.

Sidewalk Windows

The sidewalk window has  a different meaning to me as I am immersed in the state of poverty. No longer is this a window for looking-in. Rather it is a glaring representation of what I cannot have. It becomes an outward projection, the internal stage transposed onto my eyes and mind, my body, my dreams. People sitting comfortably at restaurants laughing with friends or loved ones emerge as aggressive caricatures, the careless and short-lived meeting of our eyes through window panes filled with a distant void. As if watching animals in a silent zoo, the scene plays as an unreal moment in a movie, a greeting card. And for them too, I imagine my voiceless body means little, if anything, at least nothing worth breaking a dinner to ponder. In looking through the window, I am both onlooker and looked upon and both parties are temporarily voiceless, silent caricatures. Unpleasant in its projections, the window then becomes something for me to avoid. Walking past without looking in then becomes an act of resistance. The window then allows for the following: to be shown what one cannot have, to look in to buy or ponder a purchase, to look in to dream of what one could have but don’t, to walk past in defiance of the window’s aggressive projections to deny its entry into one’s body, eyes, dreams.

Poverty Chronicles Pt. 2

More points on the state of poverty:

Dreams and Nightmares of Money: it is not uncommon to have dreams related to money. It is just as common to have nightmares that one’s already horrid state becomes worse. Unrealistic dreams that one wakes to find a mysterious check of a great sum, that some break occurs and that money begins rolling in, that one’s debts are suddenly forgiven: these and more seem to occur more and more the deeper one’s life tumbles into the black hole of poverty. Nightmares of sudden expenses, unexpected health-related crises, the death of a family member and the inability to attend their funeral as one cannot afford the airfare or train ticket: these too are just as common.

Religion: long known to those who have taken the oath to spread their respective religion, those immersed in a state of poverty are particularly prone to the promises of religion. To escape, the promise of a better life beyond this one, the idea of forgiveness, care, and all-encompassing love: these become very difficult to not listen to when one sees no sense of relief ahead. Some of the greatest proponents and stalwart believers of their respective religions seem to be those immersed in the harshest states of poverty. This is completely understandable it seems.

Lottery: enter into any corner deli in New York City in a “less favorable” neighborhood and one will notice that those buying lottery tickets are doing so fervently. It is the promise of the big win, the chance of immediate relief from one’s monetary concerns, the dream-turned-reality. State lottery organizations are extremely aware of this and this can be seen in the ways in which they advertise within the subways and on television channels widely available to anyone with a television set. The lottery is the relief in the here-and-now, religion the relief in the promised afterlife. I see very little difference in the drive between these two things except for the times involved, the former based in the present, the latter based in the future.

Scams: promises again of immediate relief, scams of all sorts abound within areas afflicted by poverty. Preying upon the longings of those immersed in states of poverty, these scams offering the promise of relief can be found on the internet, in mass mailings, in posters littering the streetlight poles around poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Their continued existence and proliferation in times of economic depression only speaks to the fact that more than just a few people immersed in poverty have fallen for their promises. And again, who can blame them?

More to come.

Poverty Chronicles Pt. 1

Poverty, I believe, should not in any way be pitied for to pity is to rob something or someone of agency and cast-upon said object (for it does become an object, “it” then applying to people, dogs, or a broken down car) one’s own guilt or fear of the very thing one pities. Poverty is a state of being and not unlike any other state of being, carries within it and about it a series of very real consequences. From financial roots may grow trees of troubling psychological propensities, unbelievable resilience, downward spirals in spirit, feelings of being trapped.

And while some of the visible results of poverty bring even the hardest of individuals to shocking revelations about the state of the world, people immersed within poverty have not lost their agency by any means but, I would argue, are more agentical and creative in the ways in which they figure out how to survive. I say figure out because in most instances, it is a constant game, a constant hustle, a series of difficult decisions as to what one will eat, where one can move to, and for how long one can go without particular things which, to many, are considered necessities.

A few things become clear when immersed in a state of poverty which are worth noting:

• Time: has a tendency to constrict with poverty, constrict as in the sense of choking, cutting off a supply of air. It also refers to a condensation, a bringing closer, an intensification, a shortening of one’s view from years or months ahead to days, perhaps hours in severe cases of poverty-existence.
• Boredom: one becomes acutely aware of the freedom of movement and choice that money allows. Not having money or the means to entertain oneself, the state of poverty can be mind-numbingly boring. For those with over-active minds and fanciful imaginations, it can lead one to madness, deep-set or temporary, which can often be sensed through the eyes. It then becomes customary to look away, wear sunglasses, or keep oneself from public view altogether.
• Nutrition: if one has 10 dollars for the day (a king to some immersed in severe poverty), one is left with a select number of choices as to what one will eat on any given day. Particularly in America, nutritious foods (as one would find in abundance in a high-end retail store such as Whole Foods) are hard to come by at decent prices. Thankfully in New York City, there are bodegas on many street corners which allow for cheap meals to be had, a fairly hefty deli sandwich costing around $4.50 or less if one is lucky. For many though, this is still too much to pay for one meal, and one can survive for only so long on processed meats and cheeses, white breads, and iceberg lettuce.
• Pride: for anyone that has had money and then lost it, poverty is an immediate affront to one’s pride. It becomes customary then to prevent others from knowing of one’s hard-up state at all costs. One will notice that those immersed in a state of poverty will, on the whole, attempt to dress and present themselves in a clean, well-shaven manner while it is not uncommon to see those with money present themselves as slobs, veritable homeless caricatures dressed in rags which have cost them a pretty-penny (this changes when people with money are surrounded by other people with money, the game then becoming who can out-do one another in expenditure on dress or gaudy accessories). This can be seen in the case of any number of artists or public figures that used to exist within the societal limelight but is an affliction of many “haves” turned “have-nots”. This seems to be very prevalent in New York City but is perhaps common to most areas in America and across the world.
• Anger and Frustration: it seems that class warfare is born somewhere along the lines of poverty when one realizes time and again that all that which surrounds one does not belong to them and is a far distance from ever becoming a possible purchase or part of one’s life. The service worker or blue collar worker is forcibly confronted with these harsh realities nearly every single day of working or, in the case of a city such as New York, by simply riding the subway. Surrounded by people that visibly parade their excess wealth to build or maintain status consciously or unconsciously, it is not unfair to assume that some resentment will be born by those that have, through circumstance or personal doing, constricted choice through poverty. Why it is unreasonable then to feel anger towards those that parade their wealth is beyond my comprehension. Perhaps this results from a sense of jealousy, a wishing to have, a want to have few worries in the realm of the monetary.
• Alcohol and Cigarettes: escape, however momentary, seems to become more appealing when one’s day is marked by constant worries of money, constant worries of how one will make ends meet at the end of the day, week, month. The paradox is that while wanting to escape, one spends money in doing so, money which could arguably be spent better in digging oneself out of one’s current situation or at least saved to ease the challenges one faces on a daily basis while immersed in poverty. The escape, costing money, then compiles to make one feel a greater the need to escape. It should come to no surprise then that addictions are born through existing within a state of poverty as they feed upon one another, a symbiotic dance into oblivion.
• Stress: a constant companion of anyone immersed in a state of poverty. Food, shelter, clothing, rent, how and where one can literally move one’s body to (do I walk or can I afford to ride the subway?): all of these things are constant negotiations with the limitations of one’s wallet. To “go out” with friends then becomes a luxury. To order water instead of a drink becomes common. Questions of, “You’re not going to have a drink?” are often met with, “”Oh, I am not drinking anymore” or “I just got over a sickness” or “I have to work tomorrow” or any other creative manner of avoiding having to shell out money for something that will not offer any form of escape but simply add to the already mounting stress of not having any money. Tabs, as forms of credit, become temporary reliefs of this but bind one to a future filled with even more stress.
• Vulnerability: whether in the form of a natural disaster, a personal or familial sickness, or unpaid debts, to one immersed in the state of poverty, it remains clear on a moment-to-moment basis that one is completely vulnerable to any external changes requiring money that one is not in control of. A simply monetary bump of getting a simple check-up at the doctor for most becomes a luxurious expenditure. The goal is to exist, not to exist well. To exist well becomes a clear luxury. Health, in the simplest of terms (check-ups, teeth cleanings, headache medicine, etc), becomes of secondary importance to sustaining one’s life. How so many of us immersed in poverty in America today do not revolt against a health care system that is broken and useless is beyond me but can only be explained through keeping in mind all of the aforementioned points. To revolt is to be even more vulnerable than one already is but perhaps this will become a more viable option as things get worse and worse for the majority of Americans. This revolt can be seen sweeping the world currently and has arisen in pockets around the United States. It is when these pockets of unrest coalesce that the top 2% of Americans that own most of this country’s wealth may begin to honestly worry.
• Solidarity: to get one through one’s day, it helps to know that one is not alone. In fact, millions upon millions of people across the world live within state’s of absolute poverty. I believe the state of poverty to be universally recognizable. The particulars of people’s states are of course different. But to know that one is poor within a growing pool of Americans that are facing dire poverty is somehow soothing and gives shape and context to one’s worries, concerns and daily stresses. Poverty then becomes a story, a narrative, that can be shared with one’s fellow people immersed within the same state. This narrative is powerful, the resentment built up by years upon years of poverty a force to be reckoned with if well organized. The state (wherever it may be) recognizes this and works diligently to distract people immersed in a state of poverty or insidiously builds conflict between groups of people that, in moments of clarity, would realize their similarities greatly outweigh their differences and that the difference exists rather between those that have (often those weaving the very narratives of difference and divisiveness played out by media outlets) and those that have not. And one should never delude oneself into thinking that the haves ever outweigh the have-nots. Particularly in America, the have-nots have always been far greater in number and force.

There are many more points to note. These will come.