I make $19.00 an hour. I live in the Midwest.
I live by myself in a tiny one bedroom, I drive a new car, have a new phone and I am finding more and more that life is a struggle for me. I look around in a bar and wonder to myself “Is everyone here just living paycheck to paycheck?” and I'm pretty sure we all are. After taxes and health insurance come out I make around $14.00 an hour.
We're all in a sinking ship. All of us. The servers, the guy sitting there drinking an IPA, the couple that are in love with each other, the dude that just walked in with his five bros. Yet everyone has water around their ankles, the ship is sinking, and the klaxons are going off and no one gives a fuck. In fact people are just partying it up. It's not the bow of the titanic with the band playing, it's a cruise ship and people are getting lit!
Does that not fucking blow our minds? That our currency is virtually worthless and what's worse? People value you because of how much currency you have/don't have. So you're basically worthless in others eyes because you don't make enough money. Rap songs about driving a “foreign” or even just songs about “brand new chevy trucks” are blasted from country music stations. Yet we know that most of us cannot afford a “foreign” and those Chevy's are super overpriced and just debt anchors but we buy them.
People make fun of coke addicts or meth users but now I start to get it. Growing up I heard about the dangers of smoking “pot” from my boomer dad. The reason we use those drugs is simple, we use them to escape. Escape from the hellhole that those boomers created. I'm not excusing behaviors/problems that drugs cause and please don't get caught up in that. Drugs are just another sign that while the ship sinks some people are just getting high below decks as water trickles in.
It's weird too that everyone wants to avoid staring at the problem. We would rather just focus on other stuff.
“Omicron”
“Ukraine/Russia”
“Supreme Court Hearings”
Those are just a few things that get more coverage than the fact that the average person struggles in poverty. I'm not saying those things aren't important, they are important but the people in power would rather you think about those things lest you think about the things they are doing.
Just a reminder. You/I didn't choose to be born on this ship, we had no option to yell to the captain “Watch out we're going to sink!” In fact last time I snuck up to the bridge it was a bunch of rich assholes driving the ship.
I'm looking for a lifeboat, what about you?