![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Weather pundits predict the unseasonably cold weather is slated to continue until March. There’s a sheet of ice on the inside of my kitchen window – awful, awful, awful.
In other news, I’ve been watching Michael Apted’s Up documentaries. Originally the series was made to pinpoint class differences in 1965 among a group of British school children. Apted has been going back to this same group and filming them at seven year intervals for over 40 years now.
There are obvious differences that evince themselves in the documentary subjects as early as seven – I won’t say they’re differences in intelligence, interestingly all the participants seem remarkably intelligent to me and remarkably articulate, much more so than their American counterparts might be. No, the differences are more in… self-awareness? perspective? I don’t really know how to characterize what is being displayed when one of the 14 year old boys from a wealthy family is asked, “Do you want to be rich?” and he replies, “Yes, because it will give me more freedom to do what I want as an adult.”
None of the children from middleclass or poorer homes seems to have this degree of insight into what their lives will eventually evolve into. They seem stuck – as was I – in a curiously gelatinous present tense. Only the rich kids had some sense of a cycle. Obviously three kids out of a group of 14 is not a representative sample, so I can’t generalize or say, “This is the difference between wealth and poverty – wealth allows you the luxury of an overview.”
Certainly, though, from my own adventures in extreme poverty over the past year and a half, I’d have to say that’s true. When you’re marginal you exist from one cash infusion to the next, knowing you’ll never be entirely clear of the obligations that are beating you down. I suppose that’s the living from paycheck to paycheck phenomenon so common to many in this economy. There's no sense of a future. Just more of the same. And of course if you have no sense of a future, you can't plan for a future.
What do you look forward to when you’re poor?
Forgetfulness.
Hence the high rates of alcoholism, drug addiction and (yes, Virginia) fundamentalist Christianity.
As for me, I’ve never had the slightest interest in being born again. Being born once was quite enough of a shock, thank you.
In other news, I’ve been watching Michael Apted’s Up documentaries. Originally the series was made to pinpoint class differences in 1965 among a group of British school children. Apted has been going back to this same group and filming them at seven year intervals for over 40 years now.
There are obvious differences that evince themselves in the documentary subjects as early as seven – I won’t say they’re differences in intelligence, interestingly all the participants seem remarkably intelligent to me and remarkably articulate, much more so than their American counterparts might be. No, the differences are more in… self-awareness? perspective? I don’t really know how to characterize what is being displayed when one of the 14 year old boys from a wealthy family is asked, “Do you want to be rich?” and he replies, “Yes, because it will give me more freedom to do what I want as an adult.”
None of the children from middleclass or poorer homes seems to have this degree of insight into what their lives will eventually evolve into. They seem stuck – as was I – in a curiously gelatinous present tense. Only the rich kids had some sense of a cycle. Obviously three kids out of a group of 14 is not a representative sample, so I can’t generalize or say, “This is the difference between wealth and poverty – wealth allows you the luxury of an overview.”
Certainly, though, from my own adventures in extreme poverty over the past year and a half, I’d have to say that’s true. When you’re marginal you exist from one cash infusion to the next, knowing you’ll never be entirely clear of the obligations that are beating you down. I suppose that’s the living from paycheck to paycheck phenomenon so common to many in this economy. There's no sense of a future. Just more of the same. And of course if you have no sense of a future, you can't plan for a future.
What do you look forward to when you’re poor?
Forgetfulness.
Hence the high rates of alcoholism, drug addiction and (yes, Virginia) fundamentalist Christianity.
As for me, I’ve never had the slightest interest in being born again. Being born once was quite enough of a shock, thank you.
