Having grown up very poor, it has become obvious to me over time that the perspective poverty offers relative to my now very comfortable life has been a necessary condition for my overall happiness.

Had I grown up middle or upper class, I would have faced many of the same challenges (school, figuring out jobs, relationships, etc) but would have struggled only to regain the security that I knew as a child, not capture said security for the first time.

Poverty also means that you have to become pretty creative to still find joy in life (you can’t just buy an ersatz version), and this was truly useful for me. It was how I found nature, exercise, creativity/art, good relationships, accomplishment, efficiency, etc. All the actual sources of joy that life has to offer.

Also, since humans do far better with improving circumstances than deteriorating ones, poverty has been a distinct advantage for me over many middle class people I have known. My life has been a steady state of leveling up instead of just a slow grind or decline towards death.

I am becoming more aware that people who have only known wealth and security simply don’t know how to be happy, so they do the things society tells them will bring happiness (like having kids, believing in God, consuming garbage products and experiences, practicing brand and political tribalism, etc).

They then get trapped by the system that knows exactly what it’s doing. The kids they bring into the world keep these people distracted and obedient, as do their political and religious leanings, and the debts they incur to afford all the other garbage they bring into their lives. They are creatively barren, and most can’t even start to think for themselves, let alone begin to examine their own behavior so that they may one day escape the prisons they live in.

It’s sad to watch really, and there’s really nothing that can be done about it.

Good luck out there.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously