This really resonates with me. My family was initially very low-middle income, and some poor business and personal decisions caused us to fall, for a time, int

This really resonates with me. My family was initially very low-middle income, and some poor business and personal decisions caused us to fall, for a time, into poverty -- even spending several months homeless and living out of a motel. The area we eventually ended up in was very rural, fairly poor with quite a bit of rural poverty around -- my immediate neighbors didn't even have running water or an indoor bathroom. Having spent my earlier years in a more urban environment, I found the local children hard to relate to, and the distances between me and kids I got along with well enough were vast enough that they may as well have not existed. My parents worked very long hours and as a result I spent huge amounts of time virtually alone. Somewhere along the way I got into BBSs and the world opened up to me. My "life-raft" was a happenstance introduction to the demoscene and the discovery of other kids in my metro area who were interested in technology, art and global perspectives. It also happened to dovetail pretty nicely with my other school interests (music and art). I saved money to buy my first soundcard and learned how to upgrade computers. The desire to be part of the demoscene caused me to dive deeply into keeping up-to-date computers in my house and I learned to cobble together pretty decent ones for the time with very little money. This kind of intense hardware/software experience got me my first job and an entry into the IT world where I grew in skills and ideas, and eventually put myself through university up to an M.S. (the first in my family) with the help of some grants. Because of those connections I met my wife and have held great and wonderful jobs since then and have had a chance to travel the world and see things 10 year old me, sitting at the desk looking at pictures in history textbooks in the rented motel room my family lived in, would have never imagined I'd ever see in my life. It wasn't all smooth running, there were many struggles and many times I almost never made it. But one helpful hand, or a caring boss or teacher, helped me get through it. I never took the SATs for example, barely graduated high-school, was nearly bankrupt in the middle of college due to a medical emergency. I never want to repeat the stress and anger of that time again, but I know it wasn't all just me, I had plenty of help and that, combined with desire from my life-raft seemed to be what did it.