3 ms·

Intelligence is has many dimensions. Poverty just keeps you busy trying to fulfill basic needs (like the lowest in Maslow's hierarchy of needs) and you can't p

Intelligence is has many dimensions. Poverty just keeps you busy trying to fulfill basic needs (like the lowest in Maslow's hierarchy of needs) and you can't pursue more abstract goals. Surviving while poor is not easy.

indemnity 8y ago
I had a brief taste of this in 2009, to the point I was briefly homeless. Until you have felt the ever present unease, fear for safety, and experienced how much mental bandwidth is taken up by simply trying to survive, you won’t understand, and it’s easy to toss off glib dismissals of people in this situation. In my time living in my car (already lucky that I had one to live in), I met all types when hanging out on the street. Labourers who had accidents and for one reason or another didn’t qualify for disability. An architect who had designed many of the residential towers in the CBD, but got hooked on meth and slowly squandered it all and alienated everyone who once cared for him. People like myself who had no support network nearby, and got the boot when the shit hit the fan in the GFC. I lucked out in being able to get a job again as a software engineer before I had been too many years in this situation and was still mostly presentable. I don’t take a single day of my present life for granted, I know how little separates me from those with a hand out on the street. We’re all a few spells of bad luck away from it.
- megaman22 8y ago
  I struggle to understand how broken your family relations could be that there's no home base that you could retreat to and start over. I come from rural New England where there is a communal network, however.I
  - indemnity 8y ago
    This is more common than you think.
  - partycoder 8y ago
    Some families are small, some families lose touch from geographical distance... and you get the idea. It doesn't necessarily have to do with personal differences.

indemnity 8y ago

I had a brief taste of this in 2009, to the point I was briefly homeless. Until you have felt the ever present unease, fear for safety, and experienced how much mental bandwidth is taken up by simply trying to survive, you won’t understand, and it’s easy to toss off glib dismissals of people in this situation. In my time living in my car (already lucky that I had one to live in), I met all types when hanging out on the street. Labourers who had accidents and for one reason or another didn’t qualify for disability. An architect who had designed many of the residential towers in the CBD, but got hooked on meth and slowly squandered it all and alienated everyone who once cared for him. People like myself who had no support network nearby, and got the boot when the shit hit the fan in the GFC. I lucked out in being able to get a job again as a software engineer before I had been too many years in this situation and was still mostly presentable. I don’t take a single day of my present life for granted, I know how little separates me from those with a hand out on the street. We’re all a few spells of bad luck away from it.

megaman22 8y ago
I struggle to understand how broken your family relations could be that there's no home base that you could retreat to and start over. I come from rural New England where there is a communal network, however.I
- indemnity 8y ago
  This is more common than you think.
- partycoder 8y ago
  Some families are small, some families lose touch from geographical distance... and you get the idea. It doesn't necessarily have to do with personal differences.