Don't Be Poor
For those of you who prefer to ready the angry tirade. And if you like typo-patterns. And my fav -- the links to anti-capitalist book lists.
I wrote this episode on a day I finally broke from getting the same only-ever-subtext message from the online wellness community. When I was done furiously vomiting words onto the page I sat back and wondered what the purpose of this writing could possibly be. So ofc, I decided to make it a podcast episode. Warning. It is angry. And it is ugly. But I’ve discussed the phenomena with friends so I know I’m not alone in hearing the constant ringing of the words that never actually get said. If nothing else, it’s a critique of late-stage Capitalism/Individualism/Meritocracy that is actually a Corporate Oligarchy that we call “Western Civilization” that has led to 1 in 2 people in the US suffering from a mental health disorder at some point in their life, and depression as the leading cause of disability in the fucking world.
This critique isn’t new.
Here is a list featuring books on the crises of capitalism from the publishing house Verso.
Here is a booklist from Harvard on capitalism and its discontents.
And here is a fantastic, albeit slideshow, of anti-capitalist books.
So, here it is. Pitchy, with no breath control, and out of key:
Don’t Be Poor.
Esp. don’t be born poor, bc you’ll experience strains on your brain development that will eventually become ADHD, depression, schizophrenia, you name it. If you're born poor, and it's a mental disorder, you're probably getting it.
So, don't be poor.
Bc if you're poor, you're more likely to be one of the 15% of people who get actual PTSD from a traumatic experience.
Raise kids with at least two parents bc if there's just one, the kid is more likely to suffer from neglect bc their single parent will have to work twice as hard which leaves no one to give the child the attention they need.
Ie. Don't be poor enough to not afford a nanny.
Don't be poor bc glyphosate is sprayed on pretty much all non-organic foods and even some organic and glyphosate destroys your gut and then your brain.
So, don't be poor because your poor kid is gonna get brain problems from eating poor people’s food.
But don’t be too poor to know what glyphosate is.
Don't be poor bc if you can't afford clean food you will end up un-well.
And don't be poor because only the un-poor can afford to heal from being un-well.
Don’t be too poor to know how to find the scholarly articles on Google that will tell you its the food you're eating that’s making you sick.
But then don't be poor so that you can afford the foods you need to make you well.
Don't be poor bc you will watch others come to the same conclusions you came to a decade ago, or sport the same fashions you were rocking two years ago, or ask the same questions you’ve been asking for twenty years but THEY will get the credit.
And why is that?
Because they’re not poor.
And you’ll watch them use the same ideas and conclusions and fashions that you’ve already burned through, and moved on from, to make them even less poor.
Don't be poor, bc even if you do have good ideas, which our individualistic meritocracy claims is all you need to not continue being poor, you will be too busy working for other people to bring your own ideas to life.
Btw, did your good ideas make you less poor? Didn’t think so.
And why is that? Because you were already poor.
You have to be not already poor to become less poor. Duh. That's rule number three.
So don't be poor.
If you want to be a composer, don’t be poor bc you’ll need a private tutor.
If you want to be a songwriter, don’t be poor because you’ll need to go to a prestigious music school to be taken seriously.
If you want to be a writer, don’t be poor because you’ll need the mental stability to work day and night until anyone notices you're any good at it. And they may never notice. Because you need an audience to get noticed. And you need time to build an audience. And time is something only the un-poor have to spare.
And if you're poor, don't even THINK about having a kid because not only will you traumatize them, you’ll re-traumatize yourself, and instead of either of you growing or becoming better than your circumstances (which is one of the reasons SOME people have kids) your circumstances (meaning your poorness) will make that outcome an impossibility.
Your kid will end up with a psychiatric disorder. Probably more than one. Maybe the same ones as you. And you’ll fall farther and farther behind in life, which will exacerbate the symptoms. Which will further traumatize the child. Which will make it harder for you to get motivated because you already work like a dog and things still don't improve.
So. Dont. Be. Poor.
Because you will tread water, with your nose barely breaking the surface, which inevitably means you’ll get tired, so sometimes you'll stop kicking. But when you stop kicking, you start sinking. And by the time you realize, you've sunk so far down that you're not sure you’ll ever get back up, but the fear of death gives you a brief injection of the adrenaline it will take to beat your feet furiously enough to get you back to the surface so you don't drown bc you can't drown bc there's a kid in the boat and it turns out you're in the middle of the ocean and they need you to take them back to shore.
But by the time you get back to the surface, you're gasping and exhausted and couldn’t kick anymore even if you wanted to.
So you climb into the boat and lie there looking at the sky wondering how the fuck you're going to get back to shore and then the child tells you they’re hungry.
And you don't think you’ll make it. But you do. Because you stuff down what you actually need to be well and go right back to the grind, to the work of staying alive, because you're poor and no one gives a fuck because they all told you since you were little that you can be anything you want to be when you grow up EXCEPT poor.
And the next time you have a chance to take a glance around yourself, which is about once every seven years, you’ll find that you're not ahead. You're not even where you were the last time you looked around. You're farther away from the shore, or deeper down below the surface – you choose – this is a pick-your-metaphor kind of episode. And yet, somehow, you're expected to just not give up.
So. Don't be poor.
Bc you’ll be judged when your kid is the one making a scene. Because you haven't taught them proper emotional regulation. But no one taught you either, you taught yourself. But you didn't even realize it was a problem until after your child was born so you already got a late start and you couldn't prevent the early years of trauma on said kid and so they already have the brain disorders and now you're a single parent.
Which, you should note, you were more likely to become because you already broke the second rule of not being born poor.
And you're doing your best, but there’s just not enough of you to go around, much less to make up for lost time.
So,
Don't be poor. And especially don’t be born poor.
Because when it's time to receive the bday party invites, your kid definitely won't get one.
And neither will you, honestly, bc you have the psychiatric disorders.
And so does everyone in your family.
So they're the only ones who want to hang out with you.
But they have the disorders, remember, so you don't want to hang out with them.
So just.
Don't be poor.
So you can have the time and the energy to find the solutions to your problem of being born poor.
And so you can have the resources to apply the solutions to your problem of being born poor.
So don't be poor.
And especially, don't be born poor.
Because only the not-poor get less poor.
While the poor toil away just to survive. And even then, they won’t really. Survive, somewhat. If you consider living sick a survival. But thrive, definitely not. And get less poor, unlikely.
So. Don’t be poor.
And, in case you forgot, especially don't be born poor.
And with that advice, folks, I have just solved all of the world’s problems.
No need for applause, I’ll look for my name on the Nobel shortlist.
And I think since I’m a writer, that makes me a non-profit organization, right? Bc I'm not profiting?
Venmo your charitable donations @LunarViolet, and check out the other weird shit I do for fun at adultpapers.com or linktr.ee/lunarviolet