[jansho]

When you find yourself in this situation, it's a good idea to "zoom out" a little and get closer to nature and real people.

I took long walks, trying to soak up the sun, trees, insects everything. I also walked all over the city and watched different people getting on with their lives; commuting, serving, sweeping, chatting ... and all the while paying attention to their facial expressions and language. And finally I volunteered at a school.

It will bring some calm. You will also realise how envious you can be of those in poverty.

[jgamman]

That last sentence. Seriously?

[Mz]

It's probably a terrible way to frame it. Maybe a better way is to say something like "People whose lives do not revolve solely around pursuit of the almighty dollar."

I would like to think there is a happy medium and that there are people who have their priorities straight and are also not poor. But there seems to be a dearth of evidence for this thing I would like to believe. It seems like those unwilling to sell their soul for money often have damn little of it.

So, while I understand your reaction, I can't quite manage to feel offended at what is possibly not the best framing, but possibly not inaccurate per se either.

(Edit: I am not saying everyone who has money has their priorities screwed up. I am just saying it seems to be hard to get both things right. It seems most people err on one side or the other, even if it isn't how they want to live. Those who err on the side of other priorities often seem to really struggle financially. Those who place a high priority on money often seem to do so at a personal cost that those chronically without money are loathe to make.)

[boomlinde]

> It's probably a terrible way to frame it. Maybe a better way is to say something like "People whose lives do not revolve solely around pursuit of the almighty dollar."

Yes, but the notion that the lives of those in poverty revolve less around the pursuit of money seems far removed from reality. Poor people struggle to make ends meet. This means taking awful jobs they don't want, eating low quality food, not affording sick leave etc. Only wealthy people can afford not to worry about it. I can not "place a high priority on money" for a year and still make ends meet while not worrying for a second that I won't be able to get another well-paying job by the time I feel like it. It's because I am not poor.

Sure, there are vagrants and hobos whose lives revolve around the pursuit of food and shelter rather than money, but that's kind of the exception that proves the rule.

[Mz]

You are currently talking to a homeless woman whose life revolves around getting well when the world says that cannot be done. When I was younger, my life revolved around taking care of my family as I was a military wife and homeschooling mom for a lot of years.

I have had a class on homelessness and public policy, I have been homeless for over 5 years and I am the author of the San Diego Homeless Survival Guide. http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/

I know a hell of a lot more about what "vagrants and hobos" do than you do. And your contempt for people with less money than you is not really pertinent to the point I was making. You clearly don't understand my point at all and are bringing so much personal prejudice to this topic that I see no real point in trying to correct the nonsense you are spouting.

[jansho]

I think today is my bad wordsmith day.

I was so detached from feeling reality, I felt jealous when I saw scavengers in Nigeria finding 'treasure' in the junk yard that they can fix and sell in the market. And when I was in a not so affluent area at one time, and guys in rags gathered around a trolley were chatting away happily. And when a shopkeeper of a small booth looked so relaxed, watching the world go by with his shiny eyes and small smile.

These people I felt was really experiencing life. They're on the knife edge, yet they seem ... I don't know, they had something which I didn't have at that time.

I'm sure alright now. But till today I can't feel sorry for disadvantaged people: they are not pathetic masses, they're people who happen to be born in unfair circumstances and something's gotta be done - and pity is not one of them.

[mikekchar]

Based on the topic of this thread, you can look at it in a different way. All humans need a challenge (or, at least, I've never met someone who is happy without some kind of challenge). A challenge for survival is, perhaps, the most noble kind. Literature (in all cultures) is filled with fantasies of the "Noble Savage". It is easy to connect meaning to that life and death struggle.

In that context, if I compare a rich person sitting on their yacht, sipping a martini to a scavenger who excitedly sets to work fixing a broken clock in order to eat next week -- which person would I want to be like? I mean, yachts and martinis are great, but they don't tell me what kind of person I am -- only that I am rich. Happily tinkering away while struggling against all odds? I want to be that kind of person. So does everyone -- that's why the motif pops up in virtually every piece of fiction, from the Bourne Identity to Harry Potter.

It's a bit of fiction, but I still think it's important. In truth, having a meaningful, noble challenge is mostly orthogonal to having money. We do see people struggling to gain money so that they can escape challenge -- only to be miserable with the result. However, money can also provide the means to choose your challenge rather than to be forced to always deal with survival.

In the end, though, whether you have money or not, how you choose to respond to challenge is what determines what kind of person you are. I also envy and respect those who excitedly greet their challenges every day.

[jansho]

> However, money can also provide the means to choose your challenge rather than to be forced to always deal with survival.

This. I agree with the comment overall, but just in case someone is reading my comments from last night, there's another thing that I wasn't clear about.

Living to survive is something that no one can't possibly relate to unless they are already in that situation.

Although I never felt it, I have a mixed background and witnessed some realities of poverty. Let's take one scenario, which may be simple to you and me but can throw an entire poor family off-balance:

Say that you're sick. You may not afford to get medicine, and even if you can, it becomes a choice whether to sacrifice something else, like lunch money for your kids. Say that after a prolonged period of time, you decide that you do need that medicine after all. So your children goes hungry, and if they go to school, it will affect their studies. Their school isn't exactly well-off either. And now they have a parent who's sick, and who they have to take care of because there's no one else to - so they may have to miss school too. The parent has always been the breadwinner so the children are stuck in a deeper dilemma - who's going to bring the money in now?

Cue in multiple scenarios like this, where hard choices have to be made all the time amongst an environment where drugs, prostitution, crimes etc are more easily accessible ... what chances do these children have when they're all grown up?

Clearly when I was depressed, I romanticised those who were poorer than me (though it was true that they had something which I didn't have.) And like the commenter above this post, I agree that rich people can sometimes miss the plot of living itself. But poverty is a terrible master of destiny. It's a cycle that not a lot of people, let alone the generations that come after them, can just escape.

If you are reading this, please remember that you're actually wealthy, whether in money, health, youth, have access to the Internet etc. You can most definitely afford to 'tinker' - and go for it! But never forget the majority who are still trapped and have to make hard choices all the time.

[graphitezepp]

Indeed, challenge or more broadly sense of meaning, is likely more important than creature comforts. The ideal is sense of security (probably from money in modernity) as well as meaningful goals. As far as I can tell.

[zubat]

I think the main point to focus on is not the relative condition of liveliness, but the mechanism of its generation - which is to have and engage with difficult life problems, struggling against them each day, even while knowing that there's some absurdity to it(because the premises are so often arbitrary).

In the popular context this always maps onto basic survival since it's very relatable and immediate: but for a person in a slightly more privileged state the problem is one of picking the thing to struggle with, because it's possible to walk away from so much of it, find a distraction and squander one more day. If walking away from everything were really the answer, suicide would be success, and we are disinclined to want to believe that. Neither does it work to try to engage with every problem you see as there are too many of those and you aren't going to be effective at all of them.

This motivates many of the conclusions of Stoic thought: the moderation, the development of awareness about one's sphere of control.

[jansho]

> This motivates many of the conclusions of Stoic thought: the moderation, the development of awareness about one's sphere of control.

I've always admired stoicism but found that the principles aren't exclusive to this. Buddhism, weirdly Islam too, and no doubt other sub-groups of religions such as Quaker-ism.

[kwhitefoot]

It's true that they are not exclusive to Stoicism but unlike most of the others these principles are central to Stoicism.

[rdiddly]

Why not? Is it such a taboo idea to question whether maybe those without a lot of money might not be happier, more integral, less living-a-lie? (Assuming there is enough for the basics of survival.) I've seen it first-hand. Some of them even feel sorry for the rich Americans. Sometimes what you gain by staying poor is worth more than the money.

[j2bax]

LMAO