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[R] Brief Notes on Poverty and "Mental Illness," Part Two
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[Guest] Joys of Poverty
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[R] Brief Notes on Poverty and "Mental Illness," Part One
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[a]
Changing Spending Habits and Monthly Expense Log
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[R] I Never Owned a Car
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[a] Driving
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[a] The Internet is Not Everybody's
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[R] Evolution of My "Revolutionary Theory"
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[a] The House I Share With Mike
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[a] Living on Less For Me
[Richard]
Just prior to my visit to asfo_del and
Mike, I had been forced to confront, in a rather harsh
way (which I'd rather not discuss in more detail right
now), demands that have been made upon me by certain
part-time and contingent employers to work
faster/produce more. Recently, I have heard comments
from these certain contingent employers, as well as
one potential employer (at an interview), that they
needed to be convinced that my work would help them to
make money. Generally, I tend to be very meticulous in
what I do, as I become absorbed in the process of
trying to get things right (whether it's proofreading,
typing or fact checking), and I'm not always a high
producer. In years past, this was sometimes actually
an advantage, especially when bosses and companies
were not under great immediate financial pressures
themselves. However, in more recent times, it seems,
maintaining any kind of quality has been deemed
secondary or even insignificant compared to
maintaining a high volume of production (even if it is
an abstract kind of production far removed from the
actual production of goods).
Moreover, it is maybe only in the past couple of years
that I've encountered bosses and supervisors (both at
interviews and on the job) who would blatantly assert
that the sole measure by which I would be judged was
my ability to help them turn a profit at the maximum
rate possible in the minimal amount of time. (Note, by
the way, that this is in reference to service jobs,
like typing or proofreading; I haven't been applying
to be a salesman.) It seems to me that these
experiences represent a microcosm of trends presently
occurring in our society at large -- i.e., that
employers and bosses feel free to rid themselves of
even the pretension or veneer of humanism, any stated
purpose outside of immediate profit, any need to
maintain a reputation for quality in the long run
(whether in terms of product or service), and --
especially -- any feeling that it might be good in
general to maintain a dignified and healthy
relationship between employer and employees (whether
for ethical reasons or for the goal of having
relatively hard-working, contented employees for the
long term). Now, more and more employers feel free to
state, nakedly and boldly, that their employees are
only worth the exact figure of dollars that they can
generate (or simply appear to be able to generate).
Somehow, I can't help drawing connections between this
social trend and some of the big-headline-grabbing
troubles that plague our nation -- not only in terms
of the obvious proliferation of corporate scandal, but
also the dim-witted jingoism and ruthless aggression
that have characterized the conduct of our government
and the attitudes of the "patriots" who support it.
Now, in all walks of life, the ruthless aspects of
capitalism -- from exploitation of labor for profit to
violent imperialism -- are allowed to be displayed
completely out in the open, without any disguise.
[Guest Comment - Rich]
We have been learning a bunch about
living on less here too. Additional lessons center around how the
government (county in our case) have gone nuts with land use regulation--to
the point of nonsense--requiring thousands spent for no noticeable
benefit to anyone (in fact, can even be detrimental). Still working at how
best to verbalize it or demonstrate it easily so others will understand
without having to experience it directly.
Virtually all of the land use regulation we endure is only a few
decades old at most. A dramatic yet subtle change for mankind! For
millenia we could build our own house and if we did a good job, great
otherwise if we survived we could always rebuild... Now, we have to have
engineers wet-stamp blueprints. In my case, this is actually an
inferior solution and I suspect that is true for many. Because the engineer
is not intimately familiar with one's lives and desires and the
particular land. Because the engineer does not really give a damn when it all
is said and done. Liability? You think the engineers are really
liable? If your roof collapses, you may find yourself spending thousands in
court only for their insurance carriers hired-gun attorney to get them
off.
But I digress. I have a bunch of info to put on our web page as
time permits. Info on the real lessons one needs to know in order to
successfully work with and around our county government. (I suspect this
will generalize significantly to other county govs.) The web page
right now is a help page but we have pushed through most of the obstacles
without any help and it is in the process of being converted to an
information page: www.prv.com/help.htm. Check back in July and there should
be a lot of great information there.
You mention poverty. Perhaps the greatest teacher and motivator I
have ever had! Without it we would not have developed our gravity-fed
drip-irrigation system nor our farming of trees, shrubs, and garden for
fibers & medicine & food. Would not have explored solar power and wood
stoves and composting toilets. Would not have found direction and
peace (even though battles and strife remain). Would not have discovered
this wonderful and paradoxical sense of independence and connectedness
nor strength and vulnerability.
Rich
souloliuqui@yahoo.com
[Richard]
"Not only is what is called 'eccentric' among the rich often termed psychiatric disorder -- and treated quite differently among the poor, but many studies since Hollingshead and Redlich's Social Class and Mental Illness (1958) have demonstrated how much more likely are the poor to become emotionally disabled. Roy Porter observed that because it imagines power, madness is both impotence and omnipotence, which serves as a reminder that due to the influence of alienation, powerlessness, and poverty, women are more often driven to breakdown than men. Society makes us all feel manipulated and thus mistrustful: 'paranoid,' and who could not be depressed? " -- from , "The Mass Psychology of Misery," by John Zerzan.
The article quoted above was posted as part of a thread that developed on the "Post-Anarchism" list the other day, oddly at the same time as I was hanging out at the home of Mike and "asfo_del," involved in an interesting conversation about the nature of mental illness and the consequences that some ailing people must suffer when they live in poverty, because they are unable to find adequate help and treatment. We also talked about the flip side of this problem, the idea that psychiatrists and other mental health "experts" were all too eager to push their drugs or other cures of their choosing on their patients, even if it involved coercion and deceit.
The latter problem, I think, is a good, obvious example of the arrogant kind of authoritarianism too often indulged in by, but also encouraged among, mental health professionals, especially when dealing with poor people and others who are deemed by bourgeois society to be of much lesser worth than the "experts" whom they are coerced into following if they want to seek any kind of publicly funded (or even just HMO-funded) help. (The best example of doctor deceit and coercion actually had come up in reference to discussion of a disability claim.) Essentially, the result of these two seemingly contradictory aspects of the same problem -- i.e., coercion into seeking and accepting any assigned kind of "help" when there is a dearth in sufficient or available help -- is the obligation to accept, and suffer the consequences of, obviously inadequate treatment. This inadequate treatment often means the crudest and bluntest of solutions -- cheaper and less carefully prescribed drugs, less thorough evaluation of problems, lack of counseling, and, maybe further down the road, quick and sloppy sentencing to the inadequate mental facilities at which the most clear objective is not to help patients to become happier or less troubled (which would cost far too much) but to ensure that they can be controlled.
In fact, the modern history of treatment in bad mental hospitals indicates a constant drive to control patients (rather than really helping them) -- from lobotomies and electroshock therapy up to the present trend toward the rampant prescription of often dangerous drugs. Quite often, patients at "mental health" facilities are released into the street when it is deemed that they will be adequately controlled (by their medications, assuming that they continue taking them), but with little effort to make them ultimately more functional within our society, or -- putting this in perhaps a more correct perspective-- to make life within the present society more palatable to them.
Going further, we might even conclude that the whole field of "mental health" really simply serves the purpose of social control. Though most of us who assert this claim too much run the danger of being considered "paranoid," the evidence is fairly obvious. As indicated in Zerzan's excellent essay, mental health practices are geared toward "curing" people by changing or altering the individual rather than addressing the broader sickness of the society to which manifestations of "mental illness" are probably the most healthy and appropriate response.
[asfo_del]
People sometimes ask me how I can live on $500 to $600 a month when they have trouble making ends meet on a regular salary from a modestly paying full time job (which amounts to about $2000 a month, I guess).
I think that changing spending habits is among those few pesky, maddeningly difficult actions for a human being to undertake. It's like trying to lose weight or kicking an addiction. We are emotionally attached to how we live our life and firmly stuck in our daily rituals. It's hard to even conceive of a different way of living, one that doesn't include the things we take for granted, like cable, cell phone, internet, going out to eat, going to the movies, or whatever it is that each of us does in our daily lives. It might be tempting sometimes for po' folks like me, but it would be absolutely wrong and incredibly arrogant, to judge anyone for not being more frugal.
That said, corporate interests have seized on this weakness we have as humans that makes us doggedly attached to our customs and conveniences. We are crushed by a constant onslaught of media images and messages exhorting us to take on ever more and ever more satisfying quirks and habits. And there is no counter-voice. Anywhere. Even among friends, you're likely to be considered rude and nosy to counsel a comrade to forego a more expensive upgrade of something she has that is already perfectly serviceable as is. It's as if we have a very loud devil on our shoulder always poking and prodding us to buy and spend more, and no corresponding angel calmly urging moderation, contentment, and appreciation of what we already have.
________________________
This is my monthly budget for a month when I actually went to the trouble of writing down everything I spent every day: April 2002.
April 1. cashews $1, pound cake $1.30, copies $2.35, typing paper $1.79, toiletries $4, veggies and tofu $2.25, beans and tomato sauce $ .84
2. milk $1.89, groceries $10, bus $1.50
3. cashews $1, cupcake $.25, miscellaneous (?) $5
4. pizza $1.50, onions $1; ice cream, eggs, and milk $3
5. chocolate pretzels $1
6. bet $2, laundry $1.25, seeds $7.50, clamp lamp $8, light bulbs $2, bus $1.50
7. cashews $1, candy bar $.50, Chinese food $3, cookies $3
8. chocolate pretzels $1, beans $1.99, soda $.50
9. tofu $1, fake meat (vegetarian) $1, chocolate $1.19, second-hand mini-pillow $.25, veggies $1.50
10. adhesive tape $1.40, pound cake $.65, library fine $1.20
11. pound cake $1.20, ice cream $3.50
12. pound cake $.60, cookies $3.20, beans $1
13. tofu, bread, and gingerbread cookies, $5
14. cheese $1, tomato sauce $.60, pound cake $.60, cookies $.50, soda $1, beans $1, peppers $2
15. cashews $1, donuts $.50, soda $.50, cookies $1
16. eggs $1.20, tomato sauce $.35, paper towels $1, bread $2, peppers $2.50
17. cashews $1, brownie $.25, subway $2.70, dinner out $8, candy bar $.75
18. chocolate $1.19, roti (Jamaican sandwich) $4.60, cashews $1, soda $.50
19. bagel $1, seltzer $1.50, subway $1.35, bus ticket (to my parents' house) $25.50
20. $0 (away at my parents' house)
21. $0
22. $0
23. $0
24. $0
25. $0
26. $0
27. subway $1.35, cashews $2, pound cake $.60, chips $.50, bread $2, cheese $1
28. Chinese food $5.75, groceries $10, soda $1
29. chocolate pretzels $1, miscellaneous (?) $5, soda $1
30. cabbage $1.79, beans $1, tortillas $2, onions $1.20, cashews $1
Plus (this is my half of the household bills):
rent $237.50
electric $13
phone $16
gas $50
Total for month: $516.38 (is my math right?)
[ There are probably a certain amount of groceries that my boyfriend bought and that I did not pay him back for, maybe about $10 worth. ]
[ I obviously could save quite a bit more (at least as a percentage of what I spend) if I did not buy cookies and snacks so compulsively. ]
[Richard]
I never owned a car nor desired one; in fact, I never even learned to
drive.
This is probably unusual for a 41-year-old man in North America, not so
unusual in New York City. I've met a few people who were in their 40s
who
never learned to drive (though most were women, due to the usual
cultural
conditioning in gender roles); I've met quite a few more people in
their
30s, 40s, or 50s who got their drivers' licenses at some point but
did very little with them
In some corners of our culture, people will give the impression that
every adult must want to drive. This is far from true,
especially in a place like New York City, where cars are often an
unnecessary pain in the ass. It's much easier to ride the bus or
subway
than find parking spaces, and it's often easier (and nicer) to take a
train
than to get stuck in some traffic jam trying to get out of the city.
Sometime further back in our history, much of the country (and
especially
most of the cities) might have developed public transportation systems
at
least as extensive as those found in New York. But auto companies and
oil
companies, in collusion with the government, destroyed public
transportation
while pushing and developing superhighways. (This is a
known fact. Perhaps later we can show some of the evidence.)
Additionally,
the commercial culture, with relentless corporate advertising, drummed
into
everyone's heads that cars and trucks and vans (and now SUVs) were a
necessity in everyone's life. This, of course, is completely untrue.
In
fact, even the most common assumption about the necessity of auto
travel --
that it is required for people in the modern world to earn a living --
isn't
necessarily true. Had the rails been allowed to further develop rather
than
being completely crushed*, then a huge number of people would have been
able
to get to work, and do their work, without the help of trucks and cars.
Meanwhile, we all know the consequences of automobile dependency. It's
destroying our environment, and our dependence on oil is one of the
main
reasons for the United States Government's atrocious wars on Iraq and
quest
for domination all over the Middle East. Yet, how many people -- even
activists -- are doing anything to counter this car dependency? Sure,
there
are a few hundred (mostly young) people on bikes here and there, but
too
often I see activists and other normally socially conscious people completely forget
what
it's like to walk long distances and/or find the nearest train, rather
than
immediately hopping into the car (and maybe, granted, pooling in the
car --
but that's only a minor improvement)...in order to get to the next
progressive or "green" benefit or meeting.
I don't see this problem that much in The Bronx or Manhattan, but it
becomes
a little more obvious in Staten Island. It's also fairly evident in
most
other towns and relatively accessible spots in the suburbs, where
people
should be able to figure out some public transportation routes, at the
very
least.
The automobile really is a curse on our civilization. It's not just
the
pollution that's a problem (I guess we're all aware now about global
warming?); it's the social attitude that it encourages. For a better
look
at what this entails, I'd strongly recommend Andre Gorz's "The Social
Ideology of the Motorcar." The automobile helps to
atomize
people while leading to the destruction of pedestrian thoroughfares and
community spaces; it puts many people in potential death machines (many
more
people in this world die every year from traffic accidents than
from wars); and it provides a poor and illusory (yet highly marketable)
substitute for freedom (just take a look at your average car
commercial, and
that becomes obvious).
In any event, we all need to do what we can to combat this extremely
destructive car culture. We can start not only by riding bicycles
(which I actually don't do, because I don't want to spend the money to
buy a
bike) but simply by walking a lot (which is something I do -- because
it's
often pleasant and very affordable). We can try to encourage many
other
people to do the same. We can publicize routes for public
transportation,
especially trains. And we must make major efforts everywhere,
collectively,
to protect, defend, and expand pedestrian areas, bikeways, and,
especially,
public train systems.
________________
*P.S. By saying that we should have expanded the rail system further,
I
don't mean to ignore the atrocities that were committed to the Native
American population and animal species such as the buffalo in order to
expand that system in the first place. But maybe that expansion could
have
happened in a different way (though further investigation of that idea
may
involve some much deeper questions about whether there really are safe
or
benevolent ways for societies to "develop" or expand technologically).
In
any event, once the choice became either spreading highways or
spreading
railways, the less destructive choice should have been clear. Yet, the
government and the corporations did not opt for the less destructive
choice
(surprise, surprise...).
[asfo_del]
Driving a car is both one of the worst things that you can do for the environment and one of the
worst drains on your pocketbook. The way things are set up in our society however (I'm writing this in the United States), it can be difficult to do without a car.
I've had two cars in my life. The first was a heartbreakingly dysfunctional 1973 Volvo, a beautiful bright-yellow station wagon, which I don't even want to talk about.* The second car I had was in Houston, which is an incredibly hard city to navigate with no car. I owned a 1976 Chevy Nova that I had bought from a co-worker, in 1993, for $550. I paid $50 a month for insurance and $40 a month for gas. An old car like that is obviously not an environmentally inspired choice, but the price was right, and the amount of driving I did was not that much. The car was retired after I was through with it, so it is no longer polluting (except with its carcass, which is still in the driveway of my old house in Houston a full six and a half years since it's been driven. At some point, a snake took up residence in its engine and left behind its molted skin, twisted into the motor's workings like a vine).
In New York City, where I live now, insurance rates are much higher, tickets are doled out with abandon, the fines are steep, and gas costs more.
Owning and maintaining a car can be so expensive that I would consider moving or changing jobs just so I wouldn't need one. I have always lived within walking distance of a food store and a bus stop, the two cardinal points that allow one to be car-free.
[*I had a teacher at art school who would yell, "Ahh, technology!" whenever some piece of equipment wasn't working right. It was his signature phrase. That was also my catch phrase whenever I had to deal with this car.]
[asfo_del]
In my quest to live frugally I feel pretty ambivalent about having and using a computer, which is an expensive piece of equipment, and browsing the internet, which costs me $10 a month and affords a very limited access to people without large means.
The computer itself is actually not mine. Mike bought it. It cost $650 new in 2002, complete with monitor and printer, after a $300 rebate. It's a Compaq 4400US, which is pretty much a bottom-of-the-line model. It uses a Celeron processor, which is supposed to be inferior to a Pentium processor, but as far as I'm concerned it's pretty fabulous. Great color, does everything I need it to...it's perfect.
The problem with computers and the internet is precisely that they're so useful: we become enamored of what they can do for us and dismissive--impatient even--with people who are not part of this exclusive community. Yet, the more useful the internet becomes, the more pressing the issue of elitism is. If a small elite has exclusive access to a commodity that is useful only to them, say, membership in a fancy golf club, then it is not as significant a social issue than if an elite has access to a vast storehouse of information and the means to disseminate it, as well as the ability to communicate quickly and easily amongst its exclusive members the world over. The more of an asset the internet is, the more of a concern unequal access to it should become.
Instead, the opposite is happening. Those of us who are connected to the www are apt to consider our privilege fairly universal: we rarely think of providing postal addresses and phone numbers, or to support print sources of knowledge and communication. If we give someone our web or email address and they tell us they cannot access it, we find them annoying and obtuse. Tant pis for them!
I found some interesting statistics on the subject, which can be seen here:
'Internet users per 100 population (ITU estimates)'
(by country)
'Personal computers per 100 population (ITU estimates)'
(by country)
It seems that even in the Unites States, only 53% of the people have internet access. With the exception of the Falkland Islands, which boast a bizarre 95% internet use, Iceland appears to be the most internet-connected country, with 61% of the population online. Most Western European nations come in at about 30 to 40%, but after that the figures drop off sharply. Some examples: China 4.6%, India 0.7%, Pakistan 0.3%, Brazil 8.2%, Russia 2.9%, Ivory Coast 0.6%, Myanmar 0.2%.
Worldwide stats:
(these numbers are from unstats.un.org, under rubric number 48)
Internet users:
2001
World: 8.1%
Developing countries: 2.8%
Developed countries: 30.3%
[Richard]
I think that culturally I've had revolutionary influences all my life.
I
grew up in the center of The Bronx in the '60s and '70s. As a child, I
knew
hippies, Yippies, Black Panthers. My elementary school was plagued by
bomb
threats and the high school where my mother taught (in the South Bronx)
was
always in turmoil. But even as a child, I loved being in an atmosphere
of
real political resistance . I loved anti-war demos (which I went to
first
with my liberal parents, then by myself). Was I a child anarchist?
I went through the punk rock stuff too, when it first came out. But my
involvement was more cultural than political (back in the late '70s and
early '80s, there was much less of a specific anarcho-punk scene,
except for
Crass fans)...
Throughout the 1980s, my rebellion was mainly cultural. But I started
getting pissed off more from my experiences in the workforce, first as
a
mostly unemployed person who couldn't seem to find a regular job (a
situation to which I've returned -- only it's worse, now, in the early
2000s), then as an all-around, kicked around pink-collar worker (I
think men
have it much worse in this field, because of the side of sex
discrimination
that much of the left never bothers to address), and then as a
low-level
intellectual service worker (proofreader) working for sleazy corporate
law
firms (the belly of the beast). The more that I got to know about
working
in the "real world," the more directly radical I became.
In the late '80s to early '90s, I also got exposure to "postmodern"
kinds of anarchism and libertarian Marxism through zines, Semiotexte
and the
post-cyberpunk science fiction scene. I was writing a lot and getting
stories published in some small press science fiction magazines that
included a lot of anarchists. I also got very hooked on the
libertarian-Marxist-influenced, anti-work-world magazine Processed
World.
I got much more political in the wake of the Zapatista rebellion (which
I
followed on the Internet right as it was unfolding, with an unexpected
amount of personal euphoria). In 1995-'96, I started going to a
libertarian-leaning post-Trotskyist NYC Marxist educational institution
called the Brecht Forum. I learned a lot from a couple of classes that
I
took there. But I also started reading a lot of anarchist stuff on my
own
and got very involved in activism. I'd say that '96 through 2001 were
my
heavy anarchist years.
I also got committed to the workerist/syndicalist scene, because I felt
(and
still feel) that one of the greatest sources of oppression that many of
us
have had in common is the experience of being wage slaves. (And given
the
history mentioned above, there's probably no need to explain why...)
But I
never could be as dogmatic in these areas as some people, and I always
had
the nagging feeling that the dialectic which compels people to focus on
their roles as workers in order (ostensibly) to overthrow the wage
system...actually just reinforces the work ethic and the same old
bourgeois
division of labor.
In the past couple of years, I've gone through some hard times (as have
many
of us) and reassessment of my purist-anarchist beliefs. I no longer
believe
in the red-and-black anarcho-workerism as much, but I'm very compelled
by
council communist and libertarian Marxist beliefs. I've also been
getting
more influence from green theory ( green Marxist, social ecologist, and
even
green anarchist). As I've been mostly unemployed, I've had a lot of
time to
rethink things, research more, and diversify my sources of information.
I've also been rethinking the whole way that I approach unemployment
and
poverty. The past couple of years, by many standards, I have been
living in
poverty. But I was much more miserable a couple of years ago,when I
worked
at a full-time job and thought that there was no way out of that
existence.
Probably, I will have to return to full-time work at some point (or
maybe a
combination of part-time jobs, which somehow seems more palatable).
But
I've also very much **learned to live with less***. I've realized that
the
middle-class income that so many middle-class people assume they need
is
mainly the result of social pressures, and that we don't *have to* be
working full-time all the time. And, I don't believe anymore that the
most
important way to fight the wage system is to organize while working
full-time (plus, I especially don't believe anymore that trade unions
have
any revolutionary potential, but that's another story).
In our society, wage jobs have become increasingly irrelevant, at least
in
terms of meaning and personal identity, to most people's lives
(although
more people than ever have to work for some kind of paycheck in order
to
survive). This is a fact well explored by the
libertarian-environmentalist-Marxist writer Andre Gorz (whom I consider
a
great influence on my own ideas, and whose works I will probably be
returning to in my "journal" quite a few times). To bring about real
social
change in our society, we can't continue to ignore this irrelevance of
most
wage work and all the other things that capital uses to keep us in our
place. For those of us who can at all afford to do this (socially or
economically), we have to explore ways to outwardly reject the wage
system
and the endless earn-and spend cycle forced on us by the present, most
earth-destroying incarnation of the capitalism. Of course, it is
also very important to build forms of collective self-management and
active
resistance, and to build systems of mutual aid to compensate for
decreasing
dependence on big government and financial institutions (which are in
the
process of neglecting and deliberately impoverishing most people
anyway).
But outward rejection and refusal on the individual level are extremely
important as well. For me, this idea is not just a matter of leftover
adolescent rebellion (an accusation that nay-sayers often like to use
against the young anarcho-punks) but a fact that becomes evermore
evident as
I get older and more experienced in this life.
In closing (of this entry), I would like to say that I don't think
everybody
should live in squats and eat out of dumpsters. I've never been
partial to
that existence myself and hope that is never something I have to do
(and,
besides, there is a whole lot of elitism and very un-anarchist,
undemocratic
behavior going on in that underground). But there are ways that we can
learn to create greater personal time for ourselves and larger personal
spaces in our lives in defiance of the pressures of capital.
Hopefully,
people can do that willingly, without being forced into unexpected
poverty
in a shitty downturn in this ultimately doomed economic system. With
luck,
some people might be able to do this on a more voluntary basis. But
when
hard times strike, sometimes it's an opportunity to think about, and
learn,
some things as well.
The house that Mike and I live in is about 400 square feet. It has two small bedrooms, each one about 9' x 9', and a living room, one end of which is the kitchen. It's tucked away behind another house on a dead-end street [on Staten Island]. Although our neighborhood is neglected and shabby, with garbage strewn on the sidewalks, we are surrounded by greenery and fruit trees.
In the summertime, we have lavish borders of wildflowers and weeds growing all along and out of cracks in the sidewalks. In a wealthier neighborhood, these would have been thoroughly removed, probably with potentially harmful chemicals, which would be a real shame.
The inside of our little house is decorated with vintage dishtowels from the 60's [bright orange, green, and yellow renderings of fruit; homey mushrooms growing among tufts of grass], needlecrafts made by my sister and me, a painting of Texas bluebonnets by Mike's grandma, [among other paintings and art] and furniture mostly from the trash or handed down by relatives.
The bathroom is the house's Achilles' heel: the roof leaks. It's so bad that we had to remove most of the wet, moldy sheetrock from its outer wall.
I don't have a picture of our house, but it is not as big nor as nice as
this one[!].
[asfo_del]
For me personally living on less has not been so much a matter of choice as one of necessity. I have been dealing with chronic fatigue, which has been getting progressively worse for about 20 years. First I had to severely curtail what I could do for a living, going from briefly teaching high school to mindless office work (stuffing envelopes), to selling gewgaws full-time at a museum gift shop, to ringing up greeting cards part-time at a stationery store, to filling in occasionally, on-call, as a cashier in a concert hall, to not being able to work at all--with many lapses in between of not having a job. Currently I survive on about $500 to $600 a month.
On the other hand, necessity is a relative term. Although I have almost no income, can’t work to support myself, and live on very little money, I am nevertheless a very privileged person. My parents would take the shirt off their backs if they thought I needed it, and I know they will always look out for me for as long as they can. For my part, I feel that it’s my responsibility to try to weigh on them as little as I possibly can.
I would still choose to live very frugally even if I had greater means. Not only does consuming less create less waste, less pollution, and puts less money in the coffers of corporations, but I find that it’s also nicer, more creative, less complicated, more pleasant.
[Journal starts here]