No talk he

he angy
"The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being." -Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
“The thing about money is, we can always make more, so let’s go out to eat tonight!” —My dad, after being laid-off, working odd and probably demeaning jobs so we could have dinner.
“Ah, baby, I want to buy this for you, it’s not like I can take the money with me when I go.” —My mom, when she bought me new clothes while I was between jobs.
“There’ll always be a job out there you can work, but we’d prefer you happy instead.” —Both my parents on jobs (“I can always get ya a job ditch diggin! They’ll always need ditch diggers. Hard work, but no college necessary. I can talk to the Hall.”—My proud, union dad, enthused, three seconds later.)
“It doesn’t matter what they do with the money after you give it to them. Drugs, beer, it doesn’t matter, maybe that’s what they need? How do you know?” —My dad on giving money to the homeless.
“Nah, we’ll never make any money, my husband has morals.” —My mom’s friend, fondly reflecting on the fact her lawyer husband isn’t working for a big money firm.
“Don’t worry! I’ve got this!” My equally poor friend buying me dinner when my debt card declined.
“I know we didn’t have furniture in the living room when you were growing up, but—ha!—remember Balloon Ball?” —My dad reflecting on the made up, mock-volleyball game we’d play in the open living room, using balloons. He had used electrical tape to make the court.
“I’m sorry we could never take you anywhere greater growing up,” —My mom, reflecting on our “stay-cations.” (“Why?” I asked, reflecting on all our trips to the park, zoo, public swimming pools, libraries, free theater, two dollar movie days, and her and my dad right there with me and my brothers.)
Bring poor is hard and it’s not right that it happens, but I prefer it to the hustle because at the very least, poor taught me what love is and I won’t let a shitty job deny me that.
Fun fact! Having a job every day is actually a fairly new thing.
In olden times, people had daily chores and other things to do but their workload/ daily working hours was actually much lower than it is today. Even in farming communities.
The concept of working super hard every day actually comes from capitalism, which in turn comes from Puritanical ideology.
The Puritans believed in salvation through work and in no play.
Early capitalists adopted this ideology because it meant higher productivity and therefore more money if their factories were running near constantly.
The idea of needing to be continuously productive in order to be useful/ allowed things like food and shelter, is actually quite an insidious ideal that is deeply rooted in the American culture.
4 day work weeks have actually proven to be more productive than the 5 day week. But corporations won't adopt it willingly because it means less of a stranglehold on their workers.
it's actually really weird to me that a lot of adults don't seem to remember the worst bits of being a child. were you not horribly aware of when adults were talking down to you as a child? don't you remember how little autonomy you were allowed, even when it came to things that seemed pretty harmless? don't you remember the times when adults would seemingly be assholes to you for no reason? even if you had nice and reasonable parents, didn't you ever have teachers or other adults in power who treated you disrespectfully? didn't it sting no matter how people justified it?
especially when I was a teenager, it seemed obvious to me & to most of my peers when an adult wasn't treating us with respect. you could almost smell it, in certain classrooms. there would be this palpable, shifting undercurrent of teenage dissatisfaction whenever some teachers started talking. and it made a lot of the kids act out! which of course made the teachers try to exert their power, which never worked because nobody respected them, which made them get more draconian, etc.
as a teen, I didn't really get why my peers and I seemingly had a superhuman sense for when an adult was on a power trip. but now I think I get it. kids are systematically denied autonomy, respect, and consistently have the validity of their experiences denied. like, flat-out. they're a vulnerable class of people made even more vulnerable by their lack of societal rights. being disrespected as a kid is so frequent that I would say it's a defining experience for most children. is it any wonder they tend to pick up on when an adult doesn't see them as worth listening to?
so yeah, of course a ton of kids want to be treated "like an adult." to them, that's synonymous with being treated like a human being worth listening to. it's up to you, as an adult, to understand that wish for what it is, and behave accordingly. you don't gotta be a child psychologist. you don't gotta be perfect at it. all you have to do is remember how painful adult disrespect could be when you were a kid & do your best to act with some compassion.
Like I've said before they believe the Antichrist will take over the world specifically by creating world peace and paradise so that everyone will trust him as a global dictator. This is why they called Obama the antichrist, because he said he wanted to end war. They believe the world is meant to fall into ruin and anyone planning to end violence or poverty is working for the devil.