When I started reading The End of Poverty two weeks ago, I made this request of Life: open me up. Make this more than an intellectual effort. Books are such portals, given the chance. It'd be well-timed with other openings in my little existence: show me, to whatever limited extent I'm capable of knowing it, more of the lack that so much of this world knows as living. Tune me in to the poverty frequency. If You think I can take it.
And Life, being ever so compassionate and creative at once, has answered that request in the most surprising and bearable ways. My job, just after increasing my hours, had a problem in accounting and only gave us half our earnings on the last paycheck. The other half will be along in two weeks, they said. In the meantime, every dollar gains just a little more value than it already had, becomes just a little more weighty and unwieldy. Every purchase a momentary cause for contemplation. Next, my apartment building, home now for three weeks, has to be replumbed. We're asked to clear space for the workmen, to put up with noise, and to expect them coming into our homes at random over one to two weeks' time -- just when I was starting to feel settled again. And finally, I asked my friendly neighborhood anarchists for a mattress to help with the chronic insomnia, and when they kindly gifted me with a most comfortable futon, it turned out to be home to a thriving population of bedbugs. At least I think that's what it was -- online research turned up a couple of simple fixes that worked well (steam-ironing and then vacuuming). And the work became a surprisingly joyful meditation on all the abundance that I have (even/especially the free and recycled abundance), as well as a prayer for all those living on the street (odds are this bed gave a homeless person rest at at least one point). All the men and women who don't even have the simple human option of bathing as often as they need to.
Okay, none of that's suffering, really: just stress. An upward twist on the control knob labelled 'Insecurity'. An accumulation of diminishment that's a threat to nothing more than tangible wellbeing. But then Life breathes in my ear: so, you're alright with the practical opportunities. How ready is your heart to open more? And then leads me to a dear friend in Santa Fe, who I haven't seen in several months. He's from central Mexico, but has lived in the States about half his life, pursuing that American Dream with a gusto and a struggle that most of us only heard about from our great-grandparents. Today he tells me that his younger brother, who lived with him for a time and then went to California, was recently deported. Like my friend, this 27-year-old had come here legal-fair-and-square, but unlike his brother who's by-the-book conscientious, this young man was living on an expired visa. He had a fairly successful contractor business going, my friend tells me, and had to sell everything. How long, I ask, over the sinking sensation of an empathetic punch to the gut. How long did he have to do that? 3 days, is the answer. They arrested him on a Friday, and by Monday he was back in Mexico.
If nothing else, he went back to family, and to a homespace. Their parents, unlike so many, haven't lost all of the old rancho that the grandfather left them. I never met the guy but I'm glad to think that at least he's not alone, or homeless. But an odd comparison occurs. Maybe it's because, at the moment I hear this story, I'm on the way to work at my dad's house. My dad began his meteoric career path with the government around age 40, after a bankruptcy and a nasty divorce. He's pursued his progress with the kind of wholehearted dedication usually expressed by immigrants, refugees, or others who in their own fates have previously lost everything. Just recently he accepted yet another fabulous promotion. I'm gearing up to play the personal assistant in organizing his next move, as I've done a couple of times already. This image crossed my mind (and not without equal sadness in contemplating): my dad, leaving work one afternoon, is accosted by armed men who tell him that he has three days to liquidate his assets, make a couple of personal calls or visits perhaps, and then he has to go spend the rest of his life in the depressed, backwater small town we all grew up in. He'll be free to move about once there, to seek employment where he likes (Wal-mart and the tourist industry have long been significant employers); he's even got family there, so he won't be alone. And this is all, unfortunately, necessary because a few months back he let his driver's license expire...
Is that fair? Is that far too simplistic? If so, somebody let me know why, cause I can't figure out the difference. Other than that one man and his laminated paper abstractions happened to be born here in the world's richest country, and the other wasn't. That one happened to have great-grandparents that made of their entire lives that struggle, so that by the time of his own birth he didn't have to. I realize there's some fundamental principle of political-entitlement-by-birth that I'm failing to include here, because I fail completely, as a human being, to grasp it. And sadness has my reason not exactly at its most expansive at the moment. While I'd never for a minute wish such a fate on my dad, I wish he could see for one second my strange vision of his life that won't happen. If only for the chance to reconsider the support and assent he gives, despite his generous nature and thanks to the culture of his workplace, to the deep toxicity of the extreme conservative agenda.
At the moment, I'm trying to remember that poem we all learned in high school. The 'no man is an island' one, you know? Which, okay, it's about a more permanent loss. But I'm thinking of 'Every man's death diminishes me'. Is that how the line goes? Personally, internally, I feel diminished for this story I heard today. It's one thing, and an easy one with our more and more, to talk of living with less. Another altogether to contemplate, essentially, the taking away of a person's life. Their chance at being alive, in all the ways we supposedly define it in this country. This reality, even as remotely and collectively as its tide washes me, is an aspect of poverty I don't feel remotely ready to tune in. Only empathetically, on the wave of sadness it brings.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
poverty1
Conversation among the inner voices, recorded this morning:
"How can you sit in a lovely, safe space, enjoying the luxury of a hot breakfast cooked for you by others, and read a book on poverty?"
"How can I not?"
I'm on the way to work (for the 6th day in a row). It's the weekend as well as spring break, so free computers are in short supply at the moment (I'm writing from kinko's). My laptop just died, but there are too many observations and other blessings to let exorbitant computer fees stop me (on occasion). Here, then, are just a few lines that astounded me this morning from Jeffrey Sachs' The End of Poverty. I offer them out of their (very astute) context of discussion, but hopefully something of their impact will communicate here. They're taken from a series of insights onto the causes and factors at work in global poverty. So many things which I for one never considered; others whose phrasing brings unexpected new light. By which, in some cases, I was almost moved to tears.
I suppose, for the moment, I only ask/invite you to feel into this subject with me, although it's a difficult one. Next time I'll try to summarize some of his very optimistic but convincing arguments on what can actually be done about it.
For now, the quotes:
"Consider the plight of inventors in an impoverished country."
"There is no margin of income above survival that can be invested for the future."
"It is no coincidence that Mexico's assembly sector is right along the Rio Grande River, since Mexico's economically relevant "coast" is its border with the United States."
(talking of the contrast of geographical and political, natural and contrived: the fact that we, among other wealthy countries, began life as a nation with the immense benefit of extensive natural coastlines for trade, yet have converted our neighbor's "virtual coastline" into a militarized "border" instead...)
"...the government may lack the resources to pay for the infrastructure on which economic growth depends...the population itself may be impoverished, so taxation of the population is not feasible."
"Children can be treated for disease to better ensure their survival, meaning that parents can have fewer children, feeling secure that they will survive to take care of their parents in old age."
And of course this line almost brought tears of a different kind:
"Americans, for example, believe that they earned their wealth all by themselves."
"How can you sit in a lovely, safe space, enjoying the luxury of a hot breakfast cooked for you by others, and read a book on poverty?"
"How can I not?"
I'm on the way to work (for the 6th day in a row). It's the weekend as well as spring break, so free computers are in short supply at the moment (I'm writing from kinko's). My laptop just died, but there are too many observations and other blessings to let exorbitant computer fees stop me (on occasion). Here, then, are just a few lines that astounded me this morning from Jeffrey Sachs' The End of Poverty. I offer them out of their (very astute) context of discussion, but hopefully something of their impact will communicate here. They're taken from a series of insights onto the causes and factors at work in global poverty. So many things which I for one never considered; others whose phrasing brings unexpected new light. By which, in some cases, I was almost moved to tears.
I suppose, for the moment, I only ask/invite you to feel into this subject with me, although it's a difficult one. Next time I'll try to summarize some of his very optimistic but convincing arguments on what can actually be done about it.
For now, the quotes:
"Consider the plight of inventors in an impoverished country."
"There is no margin of income above survival that can be invested for the future."
"It is no coincidence that Mexico's assembly sector is right along the Rio Grande River, since Mexico's economically relevant "coast" is its border with the United States."
(talking of the contrast of geographical and political, natural and contrived: the fact that we, among other wealthy countries, began life as a nation with the immense benefit of extensive natural coastlines for trade, yet have converted our neighbor's "virtual coastline" into a militarized "border" instead...)
"...the government may lack the resources to pay for the infrastructure on which economic growth depends...the population itself may be impoverished, so taxation of the population is not feasible."
"Children can be treated for disease to better ensure their survival, meaning that parents can have fewer children, feeling secure that they will survive to take care of their parents in old age."
And of course this line almost brought tears of a different kind:
"Americans, for example, believe that they earned their wealth all by themselves."
Monday, March 14, 2011
meant to say
Almost every single thing I've written here has arrived with regrets. Second thoughts, second guesses, second third and fourth revisions. Missing phrases or single words that didn't arrive til hours or even days later. I suppose writers much more skilled than me contend with this.
What a medium is this charged real-time electronic page! Bringing to light how solid and how mutable words are. Clear, and ever open to interpretation. Ready, and never complete. And for the sincere mind that wants to speak something useful into being, what a current of potential found and lost constantly circulates - on the page and in the blood. And in the mind, where those inner voices have their way and their play with it.
Today the voices in my head are saying I spoke too simply, that I was facile even, on a weighty subject yesterday. Some of them must be those activist voices that found their way in thanks to various heavy-minded acquaintances. I'm gonna start calling them 'reactivists': that's more their style. Always a word for what's wrong with the world, with the scene, with me, and never an affirmation. Never a truly original thought.
I know good and well it's deep water I was skimming over yesterday. So deep I can barely stand to look into its glassy green depths. But I'm gonna go deeper. This is certainly my intention. Every prayer-full night and every listening day. I'm gonna go deeper, in understanding, just by reading this book on world poverty and inequality. And when I join friends later this week, to plan the year's community garden for immigrant families that are barely making ends meet. I'm constantly asking Life to speak to me, with these and other currents of the Now, about how much longer I can be just another person working for a living. Or whether for the life in me I need to take a more significant path in the world. In this little wordspace I only hope to practice a few minutes of affirmation. To sidle up to the depth on careful, maybe philosophical, maybe even humorous terms if I'm lucky. To polish a tiny pane of light in all this dinginess. To speak to what IS, in all the NOT. That's the sort of word I meant to say -- the sort of uncapturable thing I dared to hope words could sort of capture -- again yesterday.
What a medium is this charged real-time electronic page! Bringing to light how solid and how mutable words are. Clear, and ever open to interpretation. Ready, and never complete. And for the sincere mind that wants to speak something useful into being, what a current of potential found and lost constantly circulates - on the page and in the blood. And in the mind, where those inner voices have their way and their play with it.
Today the voices in my head are saying I spoke too simply, that I was facile even, on a weighty subject yesterday. Some of them must be those activist voices that found their way in thanks to various heavy-minded acquaintances. I'm gonna start calling them 'reactivists': that's more their style. Always a word for what's wrong with the world, with the scene, with me, and never an affirmation. Never a truly original thought.
I know good and well it's deep water I was skimming over yesterday. So deep I can barely stand to look into its glassy green depths. But I'm gonna go deeper. This is certainly my intention. Every prayer-full night and every listening day. I'm gonna go deeper, in understanding, just by reading this book on world poverty and inequality. And when I join friends later this week, to plan the year's community garden for immigrant families that are barely making ends meet. I'm constantly asking Life to speak to me, with these and other currents of the Now, about how much longer I can be just another person working for a living. Or whether for the life in me I need to take a more significant path in the world. In this little wordspace I only hope to practice a few minutes of affirmation. To sidle up to the depth on careful, maybe philosophical, maybe even humorous terms if I'm lucky. To polish a tiny pane of light in all this dinginess. To speak to what IS, in all the NOT. That's the sort of word I meant to say -- the sort of uncapturable thing I dared to hope words could sort of capture -- again yesterday.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
forget about the tomatoes
It's one of those portals in conversation that comes now and then. When, with just a sentence, the door to the world bangs open. Leaves you spinning as all Life blows in. Knocks all your carefully arranged papers and things off the shelves and the tables. One moment, a single aside, can easily do this. You've seen it, right?
We're talking, he and I, for the first time in a while, about nothing more than our everydays. How his entrepreneurial effort, surprisingly, continues to go well despite the economic worries of so many. How happy I've been, lately, to find again that living simply, even doing without, is so very possible. How I wish more people could see the liberation -- the elation, even -- in getting outside comforts so taken for granted. In seeing what abundance we still have, at any moment when we have less.
"And of course," he continues, "I've been in places where it was so much poorer than anything people can imagine here..." I know this, but then he says something in passing about back when Mexico devalued the peso, and I realize all of a sudden: he was THERE for that. Somehow I never thought of it before. "I cannot imagine how people dealt with such a thing", I reply, knowing what a hopeless understatement is any comment I can make. How in reality I will probably never begin to imagine. "Oh, you know" he replies, in his almost dangerously offhand way, "You just eat more beans...forget about the tomatoes and all that sort of thing." I wish he would say more, but that's all he says on the subject.
And what can we know about it here? All over this world are millions who have lived for years with 'downturns'. Or whose turns have never gone upward in the first place. On so many parts of this planet are people for whom crisis, violence, disaster, has never been front-page news; it's only life as they know it. The only moment in this so-very-privileged land when we can ever say we are alone in our experience is when we find ourselves, by intent or by circumstance, outside the struggle.
Two other moments coincided, this week, with the preceding words. At the library, I came across The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs. My lifetime awareness of global history and economics has been sadly limited, but this is a fascinating and very accessible book. As far as I've gotten into its 450 pages. It's only a small effort, motivated partly by that conversation about the tomatoes, to keep the door open. And also to make some much-needed improvements to vocabulary, where the language of justice is concerned.
A couple days before that, my sister announced that she was giving up Facebook for Lent. "I'm not Catholic" she wrote, "but I like to observe Lent because it's conscious...." Her choice startled me, and in a good way, with the reminder again: how varied our range of choices, and how easy our liberation. Arriving together on my doorstep, as they did, these three voices brought much-appreciated reminders. Why don't we who live in abundance try giving up the tomatoes a lot more often? Not to mention the virtual reality? Not because we have to -- before we have to. Or even out of sheer gratitude that we don't have to. It'd be a practice. Practice-makes-perfect becomes fire-drill-preparedness becomes spiritual practice. Traditions such as Lent -- which I'm actually kind of pleasantly surprised to hear of anyone, religious and otherwise, still practicing in this country -- yes, could still have their place, in that kind of awareness. Really, if we lived more consciously, it seems we might practice giving up something different every week, right? This could get interesting.
I can't label as inherently 'wrong' or 'bad' (like some of my activist acquaintances) the beautiful things that comprise so many of our privileges. That's missing the point, to me. Partly since the point to giving anything up, intentionally, would be to regain the gratitude and the very beauty that excess desensitizes us to. Never to add more shame or negativity to the world. Neither am I suggesting that going without sufficient food and going without facebook are in the same category of experience. Only that I think our intention counts, and our alignment in whatever way possible with the world's realities. And this is by no means a complete anything: just a few thoughts on beginnings, since we in this country sit at the beginning of so many of these lessons. But beginning counts. And compassion always counts. My sister wrote today of "remembering the other mind" in her newfound offline spaciousness, a phrase that just sings to me. After reading her post, I decided to go vegetarian for the same 40 days. It seems one of the very simplest ways that I can find just to remember all the choices that so much of humanity goes without, every day.
And my larger intention, growing for some time now, is to keep that door open. Whatever that means (and it means many things). Even if the stuff inside won't stay where I put it because of those currents swirling in.
We're talking, he and I, for the first time in a while, about nothing more than our everydays. How his entrepreneurial effort, surprisingly, continues to go well despite the economic worries of so many. How happy I've been, lately, to find again that living simply, even doing without, is so very possible. How I wish more people could see the liberation -- the elation, even -- in getting outside comforts so taken for granted. In seeing what abundance we still have, at any moment when we have less.
"And of course," he continues, "I've been in places where it was so much poorer than anything people can imagine here..." I know this, but then he says something in passing about back when Mexico devalued the peso, and I realize all of a sudden: he was THERE for that. Somehow I never thought of it before. "I cannot imagine how people dealt with such a thing", I reply, knowing what a hopeless understatement is any comment I can make. How in reality I will probably never begin to imagine. "Oh, you know" he replies, in his almost dangerously offhand way, "You just eat more beans...forget about the tomatoes and all that sort of thing." I wish he would say more, but that's all he says on the subject.
And what can we know about it here? All over this world are millions who have lived for years with 'downturns'. Or whose turns have never gone upward in the first place. On so many parts of this planet are people for whom crisis, violence, disaster, has never been front-page news; it's only life as they know it. The only moment in this so-very-privileged land when we can ever say we are alone in our experience is when we find ourselves, by intent or by circumstance, outside the struggle.
Two other moments coincided, this week, with the preceding words. At the library, I came across The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs. My lifetime awareness of global history and economics has been sadly limited, but this is a fascinating and very accessible book. As far as I've gotten into its 450 pages. It's only a small effort, motivated partly by that conversation about the tomatoes, to keep the door open. And also to make some much-needed improvements to vocabulary, where the language of justice is concerned.
A couple days before that, my sister announced that she was giving up Facebook for Lent. "I'm not Catholic" she wrote, "but I like to observe Lent because it's conscious...." Her choice startled me, and in a good way, with the reminder again: how varied our range of choices, and how easy our liberation. Arriving together on my doorstep, as they did, these three voices brought much-appreciated reminders. Why don't we who live in abundance try giving up the tomatoes a lot more often? Not to mention the virtual reality? Not because we have to -- before we have to. Or even out of sheer gratitude that we don't have to. It'd be a practice. Practice-makes-perfect becomes fire-drill-preparedness becomes spiritual practice. Traditions such as Lent -- which I'm actually kind of pleasantly surprised to hear of anyone, religious and otherwise, still practicing in this country -- yes, could still have their place, in that kind of awareness. Really, if we lived more consciously, it seems we might practice giving up something different every week, right? This could get interesting.
I can't label as inherently 'wrong' or 'bad' (like some of my activist acquaintances) the beautiful things that comprise so many of our privileges. That's missing the point, to me. Partly since the point to giving anything up, intentionally, would be to regain the gratitude and the very beauty that excess desensitizes us to. Never to add more shame or negativity to the world. Neither am I suggesting that going without sufficient food and going without facebook are in the same category of experience. Only that I think our intention counts, and our alignment in whatever way possible with the world's realities. And this is by no means a complete anything: just a few thoughts on beginnings, since we in this country sit at the beginning of so many of these lessons. But beginning counts. And compassion always counts. My sister wrote today of "remembering the other mind" in her newfound offline spaciousness, a phrase that just sings to me. After reading her post, I decided to go vegetarian for the same 40 days. It seems one of the very simplest ways that I can find just to remember all the choices that so much of humanity goes without, every day.
And my larger intention, growing for some time now, is to keep that door open. Whatever that means (and it means many things). Even if the stuff inside won't stay where I put it because of those currents swirling in.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
her legacy
I've been out and about with May again. That's not her real name, but it's a name she sometimes uses, and I need a name to call her by: my oldest-youngest craziest-sanest friend. We're pulling up to the curb in front of her apartment building. "I'd like to invite you in," she begins, in her precise, ever-courteous way, "but I have to warn you that there is now a rather shocking presence in my living room." "Really," I ask, trying to imagine what 'shocking' may be in her terms. She's frequently apologized for the 'mess' when her apartment always looks immaculate to me. She hardly owns enough to constitute clutter in one room, much less the three she inhabits so lightly, precariously. "Yes," she continues, "it's my latest sculptural work. And it's rather large. I call it 'My Legacy'. You'll have to negotiate your way around it if you come in." Alright, I'm ready. For some reason -- maybe the combination of her foreboding tone and the word 'sculpture' -- I'm picturing a larger-than-life, grotesquely proportioned female figure. Her art doesn't normally turn toward the grotesque, but I've learned with May to let nothing surprise me.
Or to try. She surprises me this time. 'My Legacy' is a swaying wall of paper chains, suspended from ceiling to floor, made from carefully sliced and glued strips of the advertising circulars most people throw away as junk mail every week. This wavy curtain bisects her living room diagonally, taped to the ceiling from corner to corner, beginning just inside the front door like an invitation. I can't resist following. The paper links radiate every color in the spectrum, although there are patterns in places: all pink here, alternating red and green in another part. The promoted products are just visible in the curves of each paper link: 1o-pound hams, stereos, avocados, diamond rings. On nearby surfaces appear shards of prices: $49.99. 2 for a dollar. Half off, Saturday only. I start to smile. She sees me getting it. "Yes", she pronounces proudly, "It's all that I'm leaving to the world." "Because you never bought any of it!" I realize. "Exactly," she replies.
I navigate this permeable wall's length, rustling through its strands from one side to the other. I can't resist fingering the smooth circles, holding new splashes of color up to the light. It's not a straight diagonal - there's a slight sinuous curve to it. With its consumptive messages relegated mostly to the background, if only by the chaos of the total, the bright primary blues, greens, reds and yellows are free to make stronger impressions. And having divided up the coherence of the advertisers' hoped-for messages, she's released odd insights into the field of vision. Faded vegetables and over-brilliant gold jewelry compete for sightings. Words out of their context offer new messages: "You more real", "time only". Prices seem more absurd, standing apart from the build-up, the concerted displays of objects-of-desire.
It's not just entertaining, or even a relief from commercial overstimulation. May's done something truly redemptive here. She's changing the purpose of things. I remember the time, several years ago, when I politely battled the mail carrier for a couple months for the right not to receive these same fliers in my box every week. He was a nice guy, and finally agreed. That felt like a small victory, but May's achieved something more powerful. She's accepted the unwanted, then challenged it at the level of its essence. Using the lowliest of materials she's voiced one of art's highest callings: transformation. Sure, the simple, literal act that transforms refuse into recycling into creativity is always commendable, and a welcome release for the sensitive conscience. But this is also one observer calling another to see in a new way. See from the outside of the system. See from the senses instead of the intellect. See the potential for creativity and beauty in the most ugly and utilitarian. See from the what-could-be instead of the dreariness of what is. This quality of seeing, surely, is among the most lovely and lively of gifts that we can hope to pass on to each other.
Or to try. She surprises me this time. 'My Legacy' is a swaying wall of paper chains, suspended from ceiling to floor, made from carefully sliced and glued strips of the advertising circulars most people throw away as junk mail every week. This wavy curtain bisects her living room diagonally, taped to the ceiling from corner to corner, beginning just inside the front door like an invitation. I can't resist following. The paper links radiate every color in the spectrum, although there are patterns in places: all pink here, alternating red and green in another part. The promoted products are just visible in the curves of each paper link: 1o-pound hams, stereos, avocados, diamond rings. On nearby surfaces appear shards of prices: $49.99. 2 for a dollar. Half off, Saturday only. I start to smile. She sees me getting it. "Yes", she pronounces proudly, "It's all that I'm leaving to the world." "Because you never bought any of it!" I realize. "Exactly," she replies.
I navigate this permeable wall's length, rustling through its strands from one side to the other. I can't resist fingering the smooth circles, holding new splashes of color up to the light. It's not a straight diagonal - there's a slight sinuous curve to it. With its consumptive messages relegated mostly to the background, if only by the chaos of the total, the bright primary blues, greens, reds and yellows are free to make stronger impressions. And having divided up the coherence of the advertisers' hoped-for messages, she's released odd insights into the field of vision. Faded vegetables and over-brilliant gold jewelry compete for sightings. Words out of their context offer new messages: "You more real", "time only". Prices seem more absurd, standing apart from the build-up, the concerted displays of objects-of-desire.
It's not just entertaining, or even a relief from commercial overstimulation. May's done something truly redemptive here. She's changing the purpose of things. I remember the time, several years ago, when I politely battled the mail carrier for a couple months for the right not to receive these same fliers in my box every week. He was a nice guy, and finally agreed. That felt like a small victory, but May's achieved something more powerful. She's accepted the unwanted, then challenged it at the level of its essence. Using the lowliest of materials she's voiced one of art's highest callings: transformation. Sure, the simple, literal act that transforms refuse into recycling into creativity is always commendable, and a welcome release for the sensitive conscience. But this is also one observer calling another to see in a new way. See from the outside of the system. See from the senses instead of the intellect. See the potential for creativity and beauty in the most ugly and utilitarian. See from the what-could-be instead of the dreariness of what is. This quality of seeing, surely, is among the most lovely and lively of gifts that we can hope to pass on to each other.
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