mylolita Posted October 19, 2016 Author Share Posted October 19, 2016 This project, renovation, home re-haul - whatever you may call it, is starting to take over. A year gone by since we bought it was marked when September came around. Looking back and remembering how it truly was when we first moved in I can safely say without being too hard or too easy on ourselves that yes, we have come along way. IT has come along way. 'It' being this place and sometimes the feeling is more us against it, not with us. It can beat you some days when you step back from a room and look up to the ceilings that need scaffolding to even get up to the height to paint, and your eyes seem to hunt out, locate and fixate on every problem (the big and the small), and you start to feel like it will never end. You feel like the horizon is far, far away, but the sun is always setting. Always setting on your day and never enough time. I can't complain, I must stay positive about the whole thing. Yes, sometimes I just want to go to bed. Sometimes I just want to relax or have a cocktail with friends. Sometimes, I just want to not have to walk four flights of stairs in the middle of the night to the only toilet we haven't ripped out which sits in stripped, naked surroundings on the ground floor. Sometimes I browse nice interior shops for beautiful little trinkets and towels and bed linen and have to stop myself when I remember all over again we don't even have a kitchen installed yet. D is what I would call an old Hollywood 'strong, silent type' - you know, cue the therapist scene in the first pilot episode of the TV series 'The Sopranos'. Tony sums it up perfectly. Where have the strong, silent types gone? The guys that just get things done and don't b***h and moan about their feelings and this and that. They are endless rocks and providers and you never, ever see them crumble. You never catch a tear. Well, thats my husband. I see them now and then, the strong, silent types. They're a rare breed. Now and then I look at friends and I'll see behind them a fantastic support network held down by a provider. They seem to be the ones holding it all together, always being positive, silently assuring everyone they love they'll protect and take care of them and anything and everything that may come their way. It's always sorted, it always gets done, the curtain falls to the tune of a happy ending. I can say I've never seen D properly distressed and I've never really seem him properly upset. He never lets me know he's worried. But lately, he's not been sleeping, and it's gone on for months. It's very unlike him. Yes, his mind is always elsewhere - normally business, he has a daydream habit, but it's never taken over. Well, thats what the house has done in these last few months. Work has intensified and every plan has been pushed into overdrive. He's run the renovating of our house exactly like he does his business; well, like a business. I work 7.5 hours a day as a full time decorator and I don't sit back to flick through channels and I don't spend hours in the bath reading anymore. The main rule is we always, definitely, without fail, have the weekends off. I wake up sometimes to see him turned around, back to me with the glare of his phone casting a ghostly glow on all the pilled up pillows around us. I wake up to hear him shuffling and turning. A cough at 2am. A floorboard squeak at 4:30 as he walks the decent to the bathroom. He's juggling running a business and running this house project and for the first time, financially, he's having a moment. Cash flow is a little tight and he has a lot of things going on in different areas. I can see his eyes glaze when he daydreams and I can almost imagine him trying to compartmentalise everything he has to do that I, very selflessly, have no knowledge about. As always he assures me that it's fine, and I know full heartedly that it will be. I know everything always works out in the end. He always makes it right. We've been through this so many times before, but I guess the added turmoil is we've never had a four storey house to do up at the same time. He's always pulled through, normally spectacularly, like a magician pulling a white rabbit from a hat. Last year it just happened to be a white car for me. He always manages it and I never know how, but he will. In the meantime, all I can do is ride this out with him and be there with my own type of silent support. I guess so much communication in life is unsaid and unheard. We live in a world of silent communication where things are just kind of... understood? Without a word been spoken. Is that what a connection is? Maybe. I read an article recently that said 18% of couples who endure either a major home renovation or build their own house split up or divorce. The key word in all of this is exactly that - endure. It is some kind of self inflicted, sadistic endurance that I am finding I don't have the stamina for but simply have too. Will the struggle make this whole thing even more sweeter at the finish line? I hope so. Everyone keeps telling me, "Oh, but if you had all the money and just got other people to do it you wouldn't have that same sense of satisfaction." I hope they're Goddamn right because I tell you what, it's a b****y amount of slog for a sense of satisfaction. Satisfaction must come delayed in the form of smaller things. Curling up under layers of fresh duvets to D on a cold October night. Having friends circled round the desk in the middle of my non-kitchen with warm beers in their hands. Dancing to music through the speakers by myself to the reverb of the echo from empty rooms. Having old men with cigarettes hanging out between their lips tell you you've missed a bit when you trim the hedge in the garden. Watching the people of this city come and go. Lo x Link to comment
faraday Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 Have you figured out posting pics yet? Your place sounds so neat. What is the square footage of one floor (I know there's four)? Are all the ceilings super high or just the main floor? Word of advice...focus on one room at a time. Your bedroom first (if it's not done). Kitchen (if you cook). Bathrooms. You'll get there Link to comment
mylolita Posted October 19, 2016 Author Share Posted October 19, 2016 Have you figured out posting pics yet? Your place sounds so neat. What is the square footage of one floor (I know there's four)? Are all the ceilings super high or just the main floor? Word of advice...focus on one room at a time. Your bedroom first (if it's not done). Kitchen (if you cook). Bathrooms. You'll get there Hi Faraday! So nice to hear from you! How's your home renovation coming along? Anymore gardening? Fill me in! Thanks for the kind words. We wish we could have done one room at a time, but it's been more economical with work men being free at certain times and materials coming in to do a kind of blanket effect on the whole house. It's coming together in layers like a time consuming onion! Nothing is completely finished and nothing is completely as it was when we first got the house last September. I am struggling to find an app for photos? I tried to upload a few from my iPhone but I get an error message. Someone suggested that it may be the quality or size is too big? All my pictures have been taken on my phone and are in my album on there so I'm a technophobe seriously struggling here! Square footage... oh man! I'm not sure. I could work it out but to measure it would take me ages! When we first looked at the house the estate agents had a plan with measurements but I've done a quick internet search and can't find it. Without sounding like I'm bragging or anything, it's pretty big, especially for the UK. The ceiling in the living room and kitchen, ground floor, ground bathroom and back entrance hall is about 12/13 foot in height. It's a Georgian property so the windows are huge and the doors are large as well. The two windows in our lounge are wooden sash windows with shutters that are about 9 foot tall. The ceiling height in the first floor bedrooms is the same minus about a foot - roughly 12 foot. The basement ceiling has been lowered at some point, we think in the 70's, and is normal height. The attic bedrooms on the second floor ceiling is normal height also, if not a little lower. There are five flights of stairs (not including little steps of 3 or 4 down to lower bathrooms) and from the attic landing you can look all the way down to where the basement stairs start and the drop in total is just over 100 foot. It was a b*****d to paint, I tell you that! There are 4 fireplaces left, originally there were 7, but some had been taken out before we moved in. The living room has a really nice rouge marble fireplace, or French marble as I think it's known. Some people think is gaudy because of it's dark oxblood red colour, but I really love the grey and cream streaks in the marble. It reminds me of a fossil. One of the rooms in the basement has room for a full size snooker table plus a sideboard plus a sofa! So I think the square footage is decent, not that it really matters to us because I think the true sense of luxury and space comes from the high ceilings and the intricate coving and craftsmanship everywhere in the house. Because of the age of the house, the thing this place is missing is a large family bathroom, as the Georgians had toilets separate from wash areas and normally had a bath in a bedroom (we've taken that idea back in our own bedroom by installing one there). At the moment there are three toilets, one en-suite and one shower room/bathroom. When we moved into the house originally the basement had another kitchen in it, so we had this house with two kitchens which was a little mad! Originally a live in maid and cook would of probably been in the basement, but now the live in cook and maid is me, we ripped the second kitchen out which was truly awful and have a stripped back basement with nothing in it but drying plaster and a joiners work bench. Everyone who comes to the house always finds something new we never noticed. We had an electrician work on the house and he said, "Do you know your joists are solid mahogany? They don't make 'em like this anymore!" It's amazing how beautifully things were built then, the attention to detail is beautiful. It's so well put together it's hard to think it's over 150 years old. The brick on the outside wall is 18 inches thick. The house seems to keep a constant temperature too - cool in the summer and cool in the winter! Ha! Never too hot and never too cold. Not sure if that's a bad thing or not but I know I'm wearing jumpers all the time here! We have the historic deeds to the house and the crescent we live on was especially prestigious at the time of it's building. One of the original occupiers of the house was a shipyard owner, the other a dentist, etc. Much more distinguished than me and D! We have the hand written receipts to commission electricity being installed. It's really interesting but we just don't have the time to go through it all! I can't wait till everything is settled. Crazily we were originally going to put an indoor pool in the basement, but we think we might put one in the walled yard behind the house eventually (but, seriously, this is a major pipe dream!) I will tell you one thing though - I am definitely getting a hot tub at some point! I'll need one after all the work, I'll be a haggard bent over woman after the turmoil of doing this thing up! I desperately want to send you pictures! I wish I was good at technology - this is the wrong era for me, really! Do you know a simpler way Faraday? Sorry to go on - as much as I complain about doing the house up I truly love this place. It is really my dream house. I have to pinch myself every time I wake up in the morning. I feel like a Queen. Now I don't work, my friends refer to me as 'Lady of the Manor' which you know, is really tacky because, durrr! It's a town house Lo x Link to comment
mylolita Posted October 19, 2016 Author Share Posted October 19, 2016 A night alone, but not a bad one. I'm starting to really like cocktails, I mean, I really like them - most nights! What the hell, sometimes life feels like one huge holiday and I have an issue indulging every passing whim. Just sat here curled up on the couch with the lights low, fire on, candles lit and R'n'B playing - memories of what seems like past lives are coming to me in mischievous, secretive waves. Often in life, I have had to pinch myself because the reality has seemed like a dream. I can't wipe the smile off my face when I think back on some of the things I've done. I keep thinking about when I was 19 and dancing, stripping - my God. I have lived three lives already. I have done more things in my life, entered different worlds most people will never set foot in. I have been alive and felt alive. I have been bold. It seems so long ago, that young girl. I am still that girl, deep down, she comes out and dances when no one is around. She crawls across the floor and flicks her hair, rolls and turns. She still arches her back like a feline. Nothing will make you feel more alive like seduction. Oh my God, I'm writing this slightly drunk. Sometimes, times like these where I'm sat and the sound system is filling the halls, the basement, the house, I long to be back on stage. It's pure exuberance. When I was there it was never a performance. This is something people can't understand. It was never a performance. I tell you what is a performance? Life is a performance. Day to day, drudge to drudge, thats performing. Go now, sit here, do that, pay here. All the small talk and the politeness - there's your performance. No; on stage I was truly and exactly me for a brief 4 minutes. No hang ups, no strings, no niceness. To have no inhibitions, even for such a short time, is truly a freeing thing. I love the music of Nina Simone. She once did an interview titled 'To Be Free', and in it she describes something close to what I desperately try to clutch at and summaries and hopelessly verbalise. To feel truly free. And when I danced, that was it - no fear. What's free to me? Same thing it is to you. You tell me. Just a feeling. It's just a feeling. It's like how do you tell somebody how it feels to be in love? How are you going to tell anybody who has not been in love how it feels to be in love? You cannot do it to save your life. You can describe things, but you can't tell 'em. But you know it when it happens. That's what I mean by free. I've had a couple of times onstage when I really felt free. And that's something else! That's really something else! Like all, all, like, like— I'll tell ya what freedom is to me: No fear! I mean, really—no fear. If I could have that half of my life... no fear. Lots of children have no fear. That's the closest way—that's the only way I can describe it. That's not all of it. But it is something to really...really feel. I— Wow. Like a new way of seeing. Like a new way of seeing something! - Nina Simone. Link to comment
mylolita Posted October 25, 2016 Author Share Posted October 25, 2016 Baby, life's what you make it Can't escape it Baby, yesterday's favourite Don't you hate it? Life's what you make it (Everything's all right) Baby, life's what you make it Don't backdate it Baby, don't try to shade it Beauty is naked Life's what you make it (Everything's all right) Baby, life's what you make it Celebrate it Anticipate it Yesterday's faded Nothing can change it Life's what you make it Life's what you make it (Everything's all right) Make it, make it - Talk Talk 'Life's What You Make It' Link to comment
mylolita Posted November 13, 2016 Author Share Posted November 13, 2016 I know when I write here, I am writing to myself. And this week, some things have been written for me somewhere in some conceptual stars that I don't fully understand. I've been taught lessons about myself maybe I didn't want to hear. I feel like things have been building up to this very moment and I can't even put it into words. I feel inept. I can't express anything. What a week. You know the phase 'you have revealed yourself to me'? Well, I've thought and said that phrase for the first time many a times this week. I have lost an old friend. I have lost other friends. Everyone has divided against me. I feel like an island out at sea, clinging onto D, a palm tree floating in the ocean. I feel like everything I've ever know and been sure of is drifting away from me. I feel a vast emptiness all around me, everywhere I look, everywhere I look my only sanity is D, my only life line is my husband. I'll start with the borderline ridiculous. I love America. I absolutely, absolutely love everything it f*****g stands for. If anyone knows me, they know I adore the pop culture there. I dream of moving there. And you know the biggest thing to happen in America (and in my opinion, to the alt-right movement against the social justice warriors of the liberal left), is the election. And more importantly - Donald Trump being elected. Now, I don't want to get political, although, I am very political. I love politics. I love discussing it, especially when I should't. I guess we'll come onto that point later. But as much as the opinion is divided and the jury is out on Mr. Donald J. Trump, I've gotta hand it to him. Is it his alpha male status? Is it is cool, calm collect? His charisma? His wit?! Is it his straight talking, actually answers a question policies whether you like him or not? Is it his anti-I'll-stick-it-to-the-establishment swag? If you didn't guess already, my God, I love me my Trump Daddy, and I believe he's gonna fix it. Whether you think I'm technically insane now is up to you. But please, try to have a sense of humour about this and see my light-heartedness behind my seriousness that I agree with this guy but my God, I can have a laugh, okay? I can laugh at a meme. It's alright. A massive Trump supporter here. I massive Brexit supporter here. Yes, I also voted leave. Call the mobs now. Get the lynches ready people. I'm sure everyone has heard of this pestilent evil called Facebook, draining us of our humanity, communication and aptitude for life and anyone else but ourselves and selfies? Well, I am now, officially (maybe slightly proud of this), like, totally Facebook liberal left enemy number one. And do you know why? For having the absolute gaul, the absolute ARROGANCE apparently, to post that I like Trump and also, I had the audacity to say that I thought Islam wasn't a peaceful religion, that I didn't believe in it and no, I don't respect it at all and YES LIBERALS, IT OFFENDS ME. I too can play the offence game. If you have ever witnessed a Facebook "debate", or seen a pack of wolves stalk prey, you will know how my one voice got treated on the lovely place we call the internet. People I've went to school with, people I've grown up with, people who were bridesmaids at my wedding have passively aggressively called me a bigot, a racist, sexist, stupid, putrid (my favourite one out of them all, ten points for originality), brainwashed, Islamaphobic - I could really go on but you know, some of them thought they'd swallowed a dictionary and that made them right. These people have basically said to me "Lo, I've known you all my life. You're one of the most sweet, generous and kind people I know but, you know what, you dared to put your opinion out there and stick up for a different point of view and do you know what, you're actually a nasty piece of racist scum" and, you can imagine, worse. Now, what does my running inner monologue me say about this? I want to rightly defend my honour. I hold my own for what I think is a decent amount of respectful speech and answer the fly off question time everyone throws at me and no one gives me ANY credit and they bully and pack up on me like the f*****g minorities they hysterically claim to defend. I am blinded by the irony of it all. I am... honestly. The mind boggles. Back to not only being public enemy number one and by the way, I have a flood, I mean a FLOOD of nasty, hate filled women personally attacking me, but Quentin, one of our oldest and dearest friends (he was the one with the tent pegs - long story, no time), but we all went out for a very civilised dinner last night along with Cobain who also works for my husband (I wore a velvet dress and really, looking back, there is nothing better to do civilised battle in than a velvet dress). Quentin was the biggest baby and spoilt brat you could imagine and denounced our years of friendship because he didn't agree with a grievance D rightly had. I won't go into it because like lots of these things, it's not just the one thing at that one time but a small build up of little nags and he'd harboured this s**t up whilst pretending to still like us. Naturally, I defended my husband when I think he's in the right, as I would anyone. We end up walking home in the cold because he was too much of a man child to even answer a simple question or acknowledge there must be a problem. The mean, character assignation part of me wanted to tell him to go run back to his mama's basement, go to sleep and tell his therapist all about it like I give a f**k, but, I was wearing velvet and I think this thankfully prevented me from crossing the line there. God bless velvet. Anyway, as you may know how childish group friendships can be, this now means by default we have fallen out with everyone else apart from Cobain who seemed to actually be very reasonable and understanding throughout all of this. I haven't been able to sleep well for three days due to all the overwhelming confrontation in my life and I just sat in bed and looked at D and said "Am I crazy? Are we crazy? Are we bad people? If not, why is everyone against us?" Why does the more money we get and the bigger our house is mean that everyone suddenly tries to get all they can from us like it's okay because "they can afford it!" Oh yeah! How about common decency?! I am truly, honestly, deeply... well, I don't know. I just don't know. Does this all make me a monster? In my heart I know it doesn't. I know I am not. I can admit when I'm wrong and I apologise when it's warranted but, I just don't know. In England today, the place we live in hangs in a sombre, winter mood. It's poppy day, remembrance day, and it seems perfectly timed that all this has fallen on this morning - a day where people died, people my Grandparents knew and loved, for the freedom of speech, and my right to say how I feel and my right to offend. People march down the street where we live. Today, on this somewhat solemn, grey day, me and D, in all the confusion of this whole mix up, the world being turned upside down, feel more in love than ever and decided to start a family. Lo x Link to comment
tiredofvampires Posted November 14, 2016 Share Posted November 14, 2016 Hey, Lo. I haven't been here for a while, but have just stopped by and noticed your last few posts. Every so often, I try to challenge myself to not post in a thread where I feel I would best practice the art of restraint. I'm feeling that right now, as I crack and post against my better judgment. But since you do have this journal in a section that allows others to comment... Facebook can be brutal, and I have had my bitter feuds there as well. I certainly feel that ENA is a safe haven from all of that, and have no intention of bringing all of that toxic energy here, especially in a journal that is more like you just expressing yourself out loud. But I do feel compelled to say this -- maybe as something you might take away to think about. To consider in the whole picture, and examine as a perspective. There are women out there who don't have a D. They could never write that they grew up with everything they ever wanted coming true, as you have. They grew up with broken homes and families -- tears, punches, and in cases, sexual abuse. They did not choose these things -- these were chosen for them, as a circumstance of their birth. And now, the person they thought would be a "D" to them has walked out on them after professing the kind of love your D professes. Despite their despair and depression, they also wanted to start a family, just like you -- and they did. But they are doing it without having gone to college, because their first priority was to work to feed their children, to just put food on the table. They are working 2-3 jobs that they detest as much as the job you worked for a while and detested, and thankfully could walk away from. They will never hope to own a beautiful home, much less have the means to decorate it. Late at night, they turn on the TV to catch a bit of reality shows, the lives of the rich and famous, just to escape for a while. They watch reality shows of beautiful fancy ladies decorating their homes, to visit dreamland for a few minutes. Then they wake up to do it all over again the next day, breaking their backs. They know that it will not end, not for 18 years, 3 times over. But it's still not enough. Their children are still hungry, and don't get things for Christmas. The food they do eat is cheap crap and sickens them. Their school is without books and supplies. Their children's medical care is not supplied by any employer, and they can't spend time with their children or they will lose the money supply, their jobs. Food, medicine -- it's money they need and don't have. They are trapped no matter how you slice it. They work all day to provide for children that don't see them. Their kids grow up learning from the other kids on the block whose innocence has already been shattered by all this, and they sink into bed each night praying that their children don't end up like them -- at the edge, on the edge, every day, never a moment to rest, to feel secure and safe. Abandoned. And in many cases, they stay up worrying about their children eventually getting in trouble with the law because they had no cohesion in the community and a dearth of people to rely on as good role models. Every animal society on the planet -- from elephants to fish, move and work in herds, in schools, in flocks, because they know that they are stronger together and can only survive together, not separately. We are the only species that now has members in it that believe and act otherwise. I find it wondrous to think that someone who does not have to work, doesn't work, and is subsidized by the rich has no active sympathy for another person who is equally without their own means -- yet who does have to work, and does work. One thing I've learned from being in the trenches as a "social justice warrior" is that for the most part, life is a matter of luck. There are those who have much and didn't earn it. There are those who have much and did earn it. There are those who have little and didn't earn it. There are those who have little and earned it. That means that about 50% of the people on this planet got unlucky (that's of course a gross underestimate) -- and about 50% of those people are unlucky enough not to even have the means to get more lucky, even with the most valiant efforts. These are not hard statistics, but a way to conceptualize this. What kind of world do you want to live in? One that rewards only the lucky? The ones who got lucky and didn't even earn it, moreover? What if you were one of the unlucky? Born into a different fate, for it to unfold with its raw and mean realities? How would you wish to be treated? What if? What if? The one thing missing, the common denominator, in the minds of those with privilege, as I've discovered -- and it's the kernel that separates those who embrace social justice and those who deride or just simply dismiss it -- is that the latter seem to not be able to wrap their heads around the concept "what if...?" And the famous line, "If not for the grace of God, there go I." This divide is not determined by sex or age. It's determined by status and class. And that's absolutely, entirely unoriginal. Wealthy people with nice things aren't inherently bad. What's worth reconsidering, if I may be so audacious, is not being able to ask seriously, not whimsically, "what if?" Especially if there is nothing more that you are contributing to society than anyone else looking to be taken care of. I don't mean to sound harsh, but these issues keep me up at night. I'm sure you understand the feeling. Link to comment
mylolita Posted February 28, 2017 Author Share Posted February 28, 2017 Dear tiredofvampires, Or I feel it would be more appropriate to say, 'Dear Constant Critic'. Anyone who puts anything out into the public domain has one I guess, and I'll take it as a compliment. And yes, I do launch this diary out into the public, as you have mentioned many times before, as if it justifies an excuse to try and pull me down, and thats fine, I get that, thats life! But the fact this diary is open is the reason this is some sort of twisted therapy for me, therefore your seeming request for me to make this private will not happen. Sorry. Not sorry. I'm going to come off defensive and maybe a little mad, well I am I guess, firstly because I can announce something as happy and joyous as starting a family with the love of my life and you can completely ignore this and twist the rest of what I have said like some journalist spin doctor working for some God awful Hollywood magazine who seems hell bent on putting a negative spin on almost every single little thing. Many people like me are tired of this constant, negative drudging that surely, something must be up and if you are happy, you shouldn't be, you shouldn't be allowed to be and mostly you should feel BAD, guilty even, because others aren't. Well, I also refuse this. Sorry, but not sorry! I read your post months ago and meant to reply, but life took over, not that it's an excuse, and please do not be mistook, I have not spent my time mulling on your points for those months, but I do apologise for the delayed reply, because I feel rude, genuinely, and I don't like not replying, it seems ignorant, and I do apologise this has come so late. But I am going to defend myself and give you my rebuttal. You can post on here as much as you like, as you may of gathered I am completely all for free speech and yes, I leave this journal up for public comment, even though I don't demand or crave dialogue, criticism or appreciation, and why should I? This is purely a selfish thing and I write with me in mind, but now I must write with you in mind and your points. I apologise again if I am hazy, as I have not re-read your post and am going from memory. Firstly, the Constant Critics of this world, I personally find often react faster instead of thinking before they speak, which ironically I think you are asking me to do, to stop and think and ask myself your silly question. Maybe if you hadn't dived in against your better judgement, you might of asked yourself a question, which would be, maybe she already has? And secondly, who am I to preach as I don't know her background fully, or her husbands, or pretty much anything factual about this person? How am I to know she already doesn't have experience in these awful situations? If you had asked yourself some questions before, you might of saved yourself some embarrassment... in my opinion, embarrassment, as in my opinion you are simply wrong and you are a hypocrite. This could of been avoided easily if you had asked yourself some questions instead of asking me too. To poo poo the whole conundrum, I have asked myself that many, many a time, and often. What if? I ask myself what if constantly. What if my father had died when he had his accident? What if I hadn't of had to have an abortion? What if I'd never met my husband? What if what if what if. And why would you think I never ask myself this when on the absolute whole I am eternally and painfully grateful for everything and everyone I have in my life? Am I supposed to dwell on these things? Am I supposed to hold myself prisoner to guilt and constant mind questions because I'm in a different situation to someone else? Because people have it worse than me? Well, people also have it a lot better than me, and people also have it a hell of a lot worse than the people you think are in poverty also. You know absolutely nothing of where I come from or my background. You have no idea how my husband came up from the gutter by himself, with no help from anyone, to create a company single handedly. You may have no idea what it is like to own and run a company, if you could even manage to start a successful one, then how difficult it is, a 24 hour non-stop mind-fu****y. But you might do, but then again, I would presume you don't, or I imagine you wouldn't of wrote what you have. If you want to know a certain kind of crushing, constant stress, start your own successful company, then come back to me and try to complain that people with money have it easy and everything is a frolic in the park. I met my husband when he had hardly anything, just a glimmer of something I saw to be very successful and I could see it in him, in his eyes and in his core. He just has something and it is a constant, relentless drive. I wake up at 2am to the light of his phone and the glare of his e-mails. You can't switch off, there's no holiday pay, no sick pay - everything rides on him, he has a lot of pressure. He's been in both worlds, both pressure on different levels but just the same. When you have four people who rely on you to pay their wages so they can pay their mortgages and feed their children and you need to make a sale - this is a different kind of pressure. Everything has a pay off, everything has a price. Do you think this makes our relationship easy? Do you think any amount of money helps these problems? Do you think there is no work? Poverty in my opinion and experience is something that is merely a starting hiccup and an unlucky entry point in life. That is where the luck of the drawer ends in my opinion. You can't chose where you were born, but everything after that, in my opinion, is no excuse. Awful things happen to people all the time, rich and poor and in between, but anyone and everyone can elevate themselves to whatever they want if they have the determination and know their talents and put in sheer, hellish work time. You make your own luck. I have helped and supported my husband in his business for 8 years. I have helped and made him at every turn. Do I deserve no credit? Do these things just fall into people's laps? Not mine. Not ours. I could of made many other choices in life, I could of ended up with men that were wrong for me, quite easily, I could of been weak. Do I get no credit for making the right decisions in love? Is that not a type of strength uncelebrated? It is simply waved off with a hand as luck. Well, good judgement is not luck, good judgement is a skill, and I have made some good decisions. If I had made wrong decisions which would of lead me down worse paths, I believe you wouldn't of scorned me, I think you would of said poor me! And you certainly wouldn't of been asking me these things in the first place. And this is where I come stuck and start to wonder, when people who are less fortunate say others have it easy - even financially, I couldn't tell you, we are mostly on the bread line. Business works a funny way with cash flow. I'm not going to explain it all on here as it's personal and simply bad taste, but when I mentioned Donald Trump in my above post, famously he was going bankrupt and he said to his first wife on seeing a homeless man in the street, "That man has more money than me." It's true. Yet he was still a billionaire on paper. Obviously my husband is no Donald Trump!!! Not to say he could never be, I have full faith in him, he can have whatever he wants because he has the knack of getting it, but the principle is the same - some of our worst off friends often have more money than us. I can't explain fully but it's all in assets and stock and it's private but, it's stressful, believe me, and sometimes we scrape money together to buy a sandwich but yet I bathe in a solid copper bath. Welcome to the world of the knife edge of finances and believe me, it ain't always pretty. If you were to experience it you may find yourself wishing for £10 an hour and to scrape your rent, because you'll have a lot less money pressures. Trust me. And so comes my disliken to what I would call the 'social justice warriors' of this world. Their attitude. They preach and judge before thinking and definitely before knowing. It's an embarrassment and not only that, they often make things worse. So they see someone in poverty, struggling to feed their children, and they look to the state and others to blame and victimise the person and they say, what can we do for this person? What can the state do for this person? What have we done to this person? Searching for blame, fault, or some justification to then take from others to make the less fortunate one's situation improve. My opinion is, these people can't see the wood for the trees. People away from these situations can look from a distance and sometimes this gives a better perspective, to not be in the constant struggle, they can offer solutions and ideas the person deep in the situation may not of thought of through their efforts being wrapped up in simply surviving. And I think this principle is what this site is mostly based off. Exterior advice away from the depth of someones situation. The blame and victimising helps the person not one jot. Now, you may not agree with me, you may think it's in bad taste, but I think someone like Donald Trump has that perspective and attitude to solve these issues. My other opinion to which I hold very close and believe in completely, because it does work, for me and my husband and in principle, is not outward help, but helping yourself. You see, my message is one of much greater positivity, that you can do anything if you have the will and put your mind to it. I could name many examples, obviously one being my husbands, but I'm not going to drag up his own personal success story as it's boring and really doesn't strengthen my point much further. Sometimes I wonder; would you rather hold the victimised view of no hope and this is the way it is, some people are lucky some aren't, or would you rather feel that deep down, the power is within you and you need no one else to make a success of your life no matter how or what that means for you? Which philosophy would you rather subscribe to? And most importantly, which one actually works? I would argue mine does, and it comes from no social justice warrior mentality, no blaming, just simply to know yourself and use you to your advantage. Everyone has talents and everyone has personal power in some form, no one is a victim in my eyes and especially not if they want to be. Also, to add to your question of what I contribute to society? Maybe because you think I don't have a slavish 9 to 5 anymore therefore I am a poor little rich girl holed up in a golden cage shopping everyday (even though, hell, that would be contributing to the country and area's economy more than most people - at least I wouldn't be taking away in state benefits!), but apart from me thinking you are very rude for saying this or suggesting it, myself and my husband contribute more than most people I know. He has created jobs, we contribute to the economy, charities (wildlife mostly), and I litter pick in our area off my own back and the fact we are doing up our house has improved the street so much it has caused a bit of a mini property boom on the crescent and two more houses have sold and are being renovated too. Not that I have to justify my existence. Hell, sit by a pool all day for all I care, I really don't, it's not important, I don't measure people in those terms, I find it shallow. Who is the most self sacrificial? Please. But all this aside, and after my defending myself, I have one question for you. Next time, before you speak, maybe you should ask yourself something, and it goes a bit like this: 'What if I'm wrong?' It is a much better and more useful question than what ifs. Lo. 1 Link to comment
tiredofvampires Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 ^Exactly (Faraday) Lo, you said that you did not re-read my post to you, which I posted over 3 months ago. When I read something that triggers me as much as you are clearly triggered to defend yourself, and especially if so much time has elapsed, I think it is prudent to re-read the thing that you are reacting to. I have often done this, and found my reaction, or my read of it to be different. If you are simply going on the emotions you felt at the time, you have not allowed any perspective or re-examination to take place. Also, distortions in the reading remain, because when we read something for the first time that can trigger us (I've had that experience), we glom on to certain things, and lose other things, both in tone and content. It is clear that you are going off a memory of what I said, where you say: therefore your seeming request for me to make this private will not happen. Sorry. Not sorry. I never suggested any such thing -- that you make this journal private. Going on memory like I said, is questionable. I have taken more interest in your journal that in some. Argumentative threads here often don't end well, existentially, so I would not want to make this a combative rejoinder. I will say that I sat for quite a while with my thoughts after reading your post (so we agree -- considered response rather than knee-jerks are the way to go, amen), considering what best way to present my point of view, as someone who ardently leans in the opposite direction of you sociopolitically, without making this a "political post' (which would endanger our posts and your journal), without creating an adversarial tone, but nonetheless offering a philosophical critique of your views in the spirit of a discourse which can be divisive. I began by saying that it was something for you to consider, to create a tone of contemplation and examination rather than hostility. And none of it was personal. In response, you have delivered a scathing stream of ad hominems, calling my question(s) "silly", calling me a "hypocrite", saying I am "rude" (where? where am I rude? If you find my very collegial tone here "rude" because I am challenging your worldview, which is that people who think like me "OFFEND (YOU)", how is it you find DJT palatable? He is quite rude in his style of retort, no?) Also, I was not addressing the part of your post about your family, so I wasn't "twisting" your post. I was merely interested in responding to the part about socioeconomic status and the allusion to the political climate we're living in. Your family planning was simply not my focus, though I wish you well in that endeavor, now that I have a chance to say so. So I am not going to engage in personally defending myself against your personal character accusations and your reading of my post. That's not going to get us anywhere. You are free to think of me as a Constant Critic because I have written a couple of challenging posts on your blog, in my 10 years on this site. You are free to size up my entire being based on these posts; something you yet seem to be arguing against doing to another. I will say that judging people's ideas and concepts is natural to all of us. One thing I can't stand, and it happens a lot these days in a sort of counter-psychological one-upmanship, is people who are given to saying, "I don't judge." BULLSHT. I have even observed that those who bandy about saying, "Don't judge" tend to be the heaviest judges. EVERYONE judges, and even though I am an ardent admirer of those who are able to see past exterior appearances, or who are able to admit they do not know everything to be able to make a fair assessment (and I try to do this actively), it is a process we are all engaging in all the time, however sanctimoniously some would like to think they've risen above it. And while some types of judgment are purely based on moralizing and projecting, fully invested in a hateful and totalizing orientation, which are toxic to the soul (such as, "What a sl.ut!" or "What a loser!"), there ARE judgements that we should be making. Otherwise, we would have no court system. We judge people as having committed crimes. We judge people as having lied, when they do. We judge that those who are giving fat incentives to the corporations that will then fund their power over the nation are corrupt. And all these judgements are sound reflections about reality. We need them to act, and to protest certain actions. So there is a place for condemnation. And not so much condemnation of people, as their actions. This is the tricky part. Jesus got that one right, when he said, "judge not the sinner, but the sin." He was still condemning SINS, though -- wrongful acts against other people, injustice, lack of mercy, cold-heartedness, not treating your neighbor as you would want to be treated. I'm not Christian, but this is a secular set of commandments as much as any could be, as society functions better when we all have skin in the game, but also, are helped to ACCESS to skin in the game through the social structure that we choose as our MO. I think it's really hard for most of us to separate condemnation of an idea from condemnation of the person with the idea, and the reason for that is obvious. How many ways can you hurt someone through a "sin" or "sins" before you become "a horrible person"? An "assh0le?" It's a really tough yet fuzzy line. It's a spiritual matter to wrestle with that, as Jesus admonished people to attempt to do. In the spirit of your taking offense at "social justice warriors" (a label that is tacked on to people to rid them of individual identity, in their pursuits), I was condemning certain ideologies, and I was very mindful to keep personal attack out of it. You are then free to interpret that as you wish. I have conservative friends, even one or two who identify as "alt-right". It's not easy. But because the ones I relate to take critique and condemnation of their ideologies as a debate of ideas, we remain on good terms. I would have it no other way, because I do not learn anything by insulating myself in an echo chamber of self-righteousness with like-minded people. Unfortunately, I believe many of them are operating on a set of assumptions about how reality works for people who remain disadvantaged. I know this because I see it all the time and because my life is living proof that you can do just about everything right, work as hard as anyone, be as ambitious as anyone, and still end up on the losing end of a Trump agenda. You say, "You make your own luck." Really? Luck is, by definition, not something you can order by your own hand. Here is the dictionary definition of it: "Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions." So, let's replace your sentence with the word, "chance": "You make your own chance." If you agree with me that this is inherently self-contradictory, then perhaps you'll agree with me that anyone, at any time, may be subject to the whimsy of the hand of fate in such a way that too many factors can possibly be involved in a given result to run on a predictive model and come to such predictive conclusions. Someone may start with the "hiccup" of poverty, but what does that mean for a given individual? Those who have gotten past that hiccup like to assume that their trajectory through life is the only one that can exist. "I made it, and if I made it, anyone else could have made it." WOW. Presumptuous, much? What if on top of being poor, you were neglected and had no role models? What if you were sexually and physically abused? What if you were born with genes for depression, or your parents were alcoholics, and you inherited those genes, which make you susceptible to what is considered a disease, not a question of will power? What if your entire career depends on your eyesight, and in an accident, you are totally blinded? We have a power structure now that will soundly smite many people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, even in adulthood. Fortunes are made, and fortunes are also lost, and it's not always because of a personal failing -- which of course is harder to discern when someone else is so rich, they are too big to actually fail. I don't spend my time in an ivory tower on an imperious throne pointing out the corruption and greed, and self-centered power plays that allow those with an upper hand, however they got it, to keep others from ascending. I spend my time working in ways that I hope will improve the chances for those who have been left behind for dead, in the dust, (including myself), because "They couldn't get past their hiccups." I see what goes on when LUCK continues to work insidiously against them, and then the systems that are created continue to pound further nails into those coffins. To expound: Sometimes I wonder; would you rather hold the victimised view of no hope and this is the way it is, some people are lucky some aren't, or would you rather feel that deep down, the power is within you and you need no one else to make a success of your life no matter how or what that means for you? Which philosophy would you rather subscribe to? And most importantly, which one actually works? I would argue mine does, and it comes from no social justice warrior mentality, no blaming, just simply to know yourself and use you to your advantage. Everyone has talents and everyone has personal power in some form, no one is a victim in my eyes and especially not if they want to be. You are presenting a false choice: "either you say everyone is a victim and we throw up our arms helplessly, or else proclaim that everything that happens to us is ultimately volitional, and anyone has the choice in their hands to 'make their own luck', and that no one else is needed to make a success of yourself". I don't have to feel resigned to my fate as a "victim" or abdicate responsibility, just because I recognize I have been victimized by people or oppressive circumstances; I don't have to give up on myself just because I know some things are externally out of my control, and continuing to victimize and harm me; and, if I manage to make it out of whatever disadvantaged situation I'm in, to prosperity -- here is the MOST humbling, and therefore distasteful part for people with your type of thinking process -- I also have the choice to view it as, "I am not solely responsible for that, and 'it took a village.'" I don't believe this is an opinion, even though it seems to present as one, in such discussion. It's a fact: there is no one who makes it in this life to "the top" who can claim that "no one else was needed." It's ALL relational. Any other story is a fantasy. Fantasies are stories we like to believe that make us feel good. Faraday's cartoon, which I've also seen and shared on Facebook, exposes the flaw of this thinking pretty well. So, your point of view is riddled with flawed dualistic thinking and either/or, black/white choices that I don't have to make in order to take the positions I do. I can choose neither/nor, and it's a combination of unimaginable complexity how each of us stumbles along to find our path. I respect people who have honestly prospered, for their hard work, and they deserve the credit that is due them. Good for your husband for the hard work, and making it from such difficult beginnings! I applaud his resiliency, motivation, work ethic, and drive. Some people get things on a silver platter and still manage to wreck their lives, so we can give him kudos for doing whatever was under his control to achieve something better than that, as an outcome. I believe in merit, and reward for merits won. But the self-lauding and "self-made" concept crosses a line. He did not make it with no one's help. I don't know his whole story, but for one, YOU helped him. He had stepping stones along the way, either that others offered him, or that that hand of Fate/Luck presented to him. Any other stand is not a humble one, but worse than than that, it does exactly what you yourself are railing against by using this as a measuring stick for others. It forces them to ask you: "How do you know what I've been through? How can you judge me when you don't even know my life?" Well, dear Lo, that is what you are doing to every person you feel has "allowed" their circumstances to keep them in a lesser position in life. They have "failed" somewhere, haven't they? As compared to the people who "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps." The so-called "social justice warriors" wouldn't have so much fodder if people in secure positions didn't equate the desperate and needy situations of others as a mark of personal failure, completely ignorant of the causes and multitudinous factors that may have resulted in those. None of this would be an issue of course if it money wasn't at stake. It all comes down to that in the end. If you perceive someone as a failure, however true or untrue that assessment, or how blind to the causation of that, or how callously lacking in empathy (which is, being able to see that it could have been you), why would you want to support them in their existence in any way? It's easy to discard people like this. The fantasy works well to justify this. You asked if you are a "monster" in your post, so clearly, I am only mirroring something you were already questioning within yourself. I realize you were asking it rhetorically, to yourself, with no need for a reply. And in the future, I will probably let the silence be. But I felt compelled to reply to that "call". Of course you're not a monster. But right now, we have an institution that is going to snuff out many, many people who have worked as hard as your husband, with just as devoted and loyal wives, and that is not fair. And it is largely because their lives are being judged in the same manner that has made you furious when you were equally judged for your contributions to society. And it is not a political statement to say, any Joe Blow billionaire in bankruptcy half a dozen times, mired in dozens of lawsuits against hard-working people, who says, "I'm more broke than this homeless person" has probably not played his or her cards very well. That's their own affair, if it stays their affair -- so long as it's not played out on the world stage, where the world becomes a giant casino. I thought you would not be as insulted as you are. I was banking on "if you're in the kitchen, you can take the heat." In hindsight I do not think you would have responded more congenially to my post no matter what I wrote, as I think I kid-gloved it as much as possible without holding back on my stand. There simply would be no way of denouncing your perspective without angering you. I also think given the times I've read in your posts that you "had everything" and that life has unfolded for you in all the ways you wanted it to, that material was being factored in when I wrote. If you speak of splendor and leisure, fortune and ease, that is what I will take from your posts, not all the hidden sufferings that you have surmounted. Next time, before you speak, maybe you should ask yourself something, and it goes a bit like this: 'What if I'm wrong?' Precisely. Hopefully, we will both be doing that in an accounting of others' lives and lots, as we navigate what kind of society we want to live in, and how we wish to put this principle to best practice. I certainly wish for others to be happy. I believe everyone deserves to be happy. However, the means to that can turn a person's character dark, and in those cases, I question whether it is even happiness they have found, or rather, the enjoyment of pleasure. Which I think of as different things. This is a general statement aimed at no one. My final word is that happiness and liberation from feeling at the mercy of life are birthrights I believe in, but if anyone should forget that they were blessed with these things as much as they "earned" them, a modicum of truth is gone. Link to comment
tiredofvampires Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 One final thing, so it's clear: Hell, sit by a pool all day for all I care, I really don't, it's not important, I don't measure people in those terms, I find it shallow. We agree on that, with a caveat. I am fine with anyone who has enough money and security that they can sit by a pool all day and call it satisfying. In that sense, I really am low on judging. I admit that it would not make me happy, and it's because I value being active in various ways. I do not judge such a life as good or bad, in a moral sense, though I do judge it as less constructive/productive than some other type of life, say, someone who is actively engaging with the world to contribute something (or, if they are doing some kind of concerted internal work with/on themselves). This is again, the different types of "judging" at play. I don't judge this person as a bad person, but I factually judge them for not doing a whole hell of a lot for the world outside their pool deck. That's an observable fact. I certainly don't condemn such a life (if that's all they did), but nor do I hold it up as an object of admiration. They have as much right to be happy and if that makes them happy, all the more power to it. But because I value contributing (or doing something with one's solitude for growth in some fashion), it's not something I gravitate towards, and I certainly wouldn't say they have "merited" something other than the enjoyment they can take in the bathing and sunbathing. Where this goes all afoul is when people who have the luxury of sitting by a pool all day take the ironic liberty to think of others as not contributing, simply by virtue of having less to luxuriate in; and then, asking to be given a loophole, a break, for having these luxuries, as tangible reward, at the expense of others. And contributing to the economy is of course right and good, as long as that economy is used as equitably as can be used. But yes, that's by my playbook. Link to comment
Ms Darcy Posted March 3, 2017 Share Posted March 3, 2017 Twenty six. Married. Kept woman. A beautiful house. My own car. My own clothes. City breaks and expensive furniture. Luxury, luxury, luxury. Talk of starting a family. Twenty six. I got it. I got it in the end. I'm just happening upon this journal. These days, with all the drama in the world, sometimes I like to escape to melodramatic romance novels with happy endings. This journal sort of reminds me of that in a way - entertaining and light. And written with swift fluffiness. But as I've gone on, I've gone from thinking "what a fabulous life" to "what a sad life." Maybe you are very happy. I hope so and you are just writing for entertainment. But wow girl, you seem very very sad. Maybe I'm wrong. And kick me if I am. I forget where you said it, but you said something about being a witness to the world and not apart of it. Certainly, you have an anachronistic style. But hopefully you can find something meaningful and purposeful to go for. Maybe go into writing. Your writing is very entertaining. Link to comment
journeynow Posted March 3, 2017 Share Posted March 3, 2017 Hi mylolita, I've only followed just a bit of your recent journal, and am just popping in to say you sound like you appreciate what you have and where you've come from, and realize you have options and have made choices based on what you want. Kudos. I suppose I took the opposite approach from you when starting out in my 20's, every choice I made (every purchase, every decision) took into account its affect on the environment and other people around the world, I did not want to play a part in waste or oppression. At some point I had to compromise my values with my reality in order to function in the current society, and years down the road I'm not sure if one way is better than the other, just what feels right for me at this time. What I essentially value is that we have choices, which is a glorious thing. Sending you good vibes! Link to comment
Silverbirch Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 wow Lolly, your house sounds amazing! Reminds me of that English television series we get over here. I think it's called "Grand Designs". Re your situation, my younger sisters situation has been much like yours, and 30 years down the track, she is still very happy although having money and a nice home obviously doesn't preclude a person from having to experience emotional hardships a lot of people have - she had 6 miscarriages, nearly lost one child at birth and in the following weeks, and her husband had cancer. One of the things which has been so stressful fir them is in relation to her husband's business. He now regrets letting his business get "too big" because of the stresses that has brought which has seen them risk bankruptcy fir the last couple of years. She hasn't been able to work because of her husband's business - he works mostly 7 days a week, and on the occasions where he six able to gave a day or even a couple of days off, she drops everything to go away with him. She said to me once that sometimes when she wakes up and sees where she lives, she feels like pinching herself to make sure she isn't dreaming. 1 Link to comment
Silverbirch Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 And I don't believe you should consider yourself as a kept woman because further down the track, you will need to make sacrifices to support your husbands work and life. Link to comment
Silverbirch Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 One other thing I want to say about my sister and her husband, I am SO grateful for the things they have given to and done of their own volition to my elderly mother. Because they have had money, they out some extra money towards a lively home for my mother to live in for a few years before she eventually had to go into a nursing home. My mother now lives in a beautiful nursing home/hostel close to where my sister lives. My sister visits her EVERY day, and she has sorted out any issues related to my mother's care. There would be few, if any people as well cared for as my mother. She isn't just stuck in a nursing home - she comes out and gets taken to her favourite restaurant at least once a fortnight, sometimes more, gets to spend time with family, goes to the beauty salon regularly and always looks immaculate. She has had a lot of serious illness requiring hospitalisation so, and my sister has always been there. I hope that doesn't scare you Lolly. As we get older and our parents need someone to give of their time and love, often, at least in our case, my sister does so much more than the rest of us who have had to work outside of the home. She's a real blessing to us. 1 Link to comment
WithLove Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 I like your writing style, Lolita. I hope you do find other things to keep you occupied and agree with Mrs. Darcy that writing is a good idea. Link to comment
ProtestTheHero Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 I will add my meager two cents to this thread and say I stand in solidarity with you, Lolita. I am fairly young (27) and work in accounting/financial services. I make good money for my age, but I would not miss the grind of work if the means to fund my lifestyle could be supplied in another way. We are aligned politically. We are aligned in believing that life, more often than not, is a product of our own decisions more than it is a product of our own circumstances. Obviously, people are born closer to the finish line than others, but that doesn't change how I feel. Anyone can do what I do and make what I make, and I am weary of arguments to the contrary when nothing other than 40+ hours of hard work every week stands in between them and me. I am not uniquely gifted. Just wanted to show you some love. Link to comment
Seraphim Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 Anyone can do what you do? The profoundly disabled can? My son can not . I would qualify WHO can and be pretty damned happy you can. Link to comment
Seraphim Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 I can work 40 hours a week? No. In order for my son to get ahead in life no, no I can't. I am lucky that I have a husband who graciously supports us while I work part time because I have an autistic son who needs my time. He has need my time and support for years. Even though he is almost 20 years old I still get phone calls weekly in order to help him figure things out . As in he is too hot at school and he can't figure out how to make things better . So I ask him to go outside before he reaches meltdown. Or in the winter remind him he needs to wear appropriate clothes . Or or or or. I asked the psychologist if he would ever work and I was told no probably not . So no not everybody can work 40 hours a week and make crack loads of money . However ,my husband and I gladly work and pay taxes so that people like our son can be looked after. Link to comment
tiredofvampires Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 (I deleted the above post because I was editing it when the time window ran out. This is the final version.) I was going to rebut PTH's post starting with the same sentence, "Anyone can do what I do and make what I make." But Seraphim beat me to it. Based on your own journal entries, now growing over with weeds, your history reveals an early life with a 2-parent home that put you in good schools, and advanced placement classes. From an early age, you were suckled on the expectations of high achievement, and these things were modeled to you to in an upper-income family with a beacon of respectable and career-accomplishment in your dad. Your father, a necessity to a young boy's development into manhood, was always there, always encouraging, unconditionally loving. No, things weren't perfect, and you had your growing pains and scars, much of it internalized from social messaging; but your foundations were solid, strong, and unwavering. You were encouraged by your teachers, you stood out in school. You were recognized with awards, scholarships, and commendations. Whatever your modest self-appraisal, you were deemed gifted and talented. You had a work ethic to match and to earn it, but all the way through, you shone in extraordinary ways. You applied to law school and were accepted into a highly ranking one. You could have been a lawyer, had you preferred that path to one that you are on now, which was fostered by family connections amongst big fish in the game, and a highly lubricated transition into the family business. So you did well by yourself, PTH. But the gods smiled upon you the day you were born. They gave you brains that few have to boast. They gave you comfortable circumstances, materially never wanting. You got allowances where some kids have to work newspaper routes to earn enough for a movie. You were loved by your relatives. They weren't on dope, alcoholics, and you didn't have to witness domestic violence. Your mom was not a great role model as "strong women" go, and could have done a lot of things better, but she was there for you and the family. You had a brother you were/are close to. You had a community, even though you took issue with some of it. Your peer network sucked for many years, but part of that was because you were smarter and more enterprising than them, and they had to take their petty personal dramas out on a "nerdy" kid. Some of this, you have submerged in the amnesia that time grants us; the rest of it, you don't count. No, it is not "anyone" who can go to law school. Not everyone could go to law school, even with ALL the rest there that I listed to start them with a leg up. Even people who have your raw IQ, which is probably upwards of 150, could not go to law school because their brain areas are not suited to the tasks or ways of thinking that law requires. Not everyone could carry, be entrusted with the financial responsibility for the wealthiest corporations that exist, which is what I believe your job entails. I could never do that, and I think I can hold my own, intellectually in most respects. Some people like me are just bad with figures, numbers, and money, and that's an aptitude. Likewise, I don't think you'd be able to have a career as a biological researcher, even if you had equivalent IQ's. We are BORN with aptitudes. I have an aptitude for logical reasoning, one of my best friends does not, even though he's smart enough to work a decent job as a City employee, hanging artwork, organizing events, and being the sound man, which require mechanical skills I think I would suck at even if trained (and there is no one who works harder than he does, and he's been very well educated, but he still relies on his parents for a roof over his head because of the astronomical rental and housing where were live -- so, he's not on any public subsidy, but he's still a "taker" within his own clan, and needs them to stay afloat and have the things he does, with discretionary spending). Not everyone could write the way you do here, with your brains and wit and style. No, not anyone. Lolita is pretty good, but she was born with a good aptitude for verbal, written expression. I'm guessing she hasn't taken extensive graduate courses in creative writing (which still wouldn't guarantee talent and/or success, and those do not necessarily correlate, either, often due to, again -- LUCK, and who you know). If she ever gets, "The Memoirs of a Redhead" published, maybe she'll get on Oprah, but it won't be because "anyone could have done it." And certainly, landing a husband who will take care of you with no qualms, who relishes you being his "kept wife" in this day and age, is only a choice inasmuch as it was given to be chosen. Peruse the dating sites to see how many men are okay with women who don't work, and don't want to, and you'll see what I mean. I'm not here to attack you, Lolita. (And I'm posting to respond to PTH's post.) I'm here to speak truth to the situation, and separate the fiction from the non-fiction. And you said you value a certain world leader's "plain-speaking" so in that vein, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, despite your last post. PTH, you have also missed the slightly more dicey point that it is highly ironic to wish and enjoy for people to take care of you, but by simple dint of having the luck to have a significant other swoop in from the heavens out of "happily-ever-land", where those seemingly arbitrary decisions are made (by...God?) to do this bidding, that clears you of the label "taker." This is not about where the taker is taking from. It's about "takers" calling others "takers". And those who "rely on" and have "relied upon" calling out those who "rely on". I have a problem with that -- in fact, I have a problem with the labels and the concept overall. I would rather we just discard the whole damn idea. Or, admit that everyone is a taker, just from different sources and people at different times. These words judge everyone in an ugly way and distort the deeper realities. But some like to selectively apply the term and concepts, so I am using their language and their worldview to make my argument. If you can take in a way that touches only your spouse's bank account, I have no issue with that. I only have an issue with the telling others who work all day and still can't make ends meet because they are not adequately valued, being called "takers" by that first group. And finally, there is the question of, if the "anyone" became "everyone" and were doing exactly what you are doing, PTH, society as you know and like it to be would quickly become an insufferable and unlivable place for lack of services and diversity of economic opportunity. Your life would be unlivable if "anyone" became "everyone." So a more realistic, down-to-earth way to view people who are lower on the status totem pole is that they allow the very stratification that both allows you to sense your own comparative value and take pride in that, and also, you are afforded the comfort you are because they never had it in them -- genetically, temperamentally, socially/support structure-wise, whatever -- to get there. Every time a service person brings me food, drops me off at a bus stop, or mops the floor so I can use the restroom without it being filthy, I think, thank god someone is willing to do what they are, that someone is there to do this for me. 'Cause I certainly as hell would feel depressed if I had to do this every day, and furthermore, it would be very draining to me physically. Thank god they have a niche to do what they have to do to (try to! with the tools they have, and the only ones they know) feed their family, and I can have a meal served to me/get transported somewhere when my car's broken/not slip on pee and toilet paper in the can. This is a major win-win. And we are not talking just about low and min-wage people in this whole thing. People of all strata are about to be screwed in massive ways, many of them educated and in the middle on the curve. We need each other. If they all disappeared, I'd be SOL. And so would you. That doesn't mean they merit the same pay as a lawyer. But we actually are accountable to them, not just vice versa. We are accountable for making them matter, because obviously THEY DO (unless you want to slip on pee.) Gratitude is what's missing in your scorn. Ingratitude is what prevents fairness and incumbent respect. Gratitude recognizes the facts, it's not some cotton-candy ethereal spiritual thing. There is absolutely nothing -- not my intellect, not my hard work, not the good and bad circumstances of my birth, all things volitional or not volitional -- that, when all tallied, makes me better than them or more entitled (a funny word, in that it's only used by the elite to disparage those with need, when elitism carries with it an aristocratic sense of entitlement) to anything, because my need for them does not diminish by any faculty I posses or effort I made. Of course, their stories are as different as the persons themselves, which is another thing lost here. If a billionaire could be poorer than someone who is homeless, what right things has that homeless person done that the billionaire has not done? What mistakes has the billionaire made that the homeless person has not? Your (ironic and laudable) modesty about being nothing special would give you 5 gold stars in my book, if you just redirected it 180 degrees. Link to comment
journeynow Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 nothing other than 40+ hours of hard work every week stands in between them and me. It's a mistake to think that those not making big bucks are not ALSO putting in 40+ hours of hard work every week. Hard work is hard work, and does not always translate into money or security. Sometimes it is about choices (some people put money before other values), sometime circumstances do affect options that people have. As I mentioned earlier, for me choices about money are also tied into a bigger picture, including the environment and people elsewhere. It is not black and white, there are repercussions to our choices that affect others now and in the future. Some choose to take those into consideration, some don't, and I suppose in the end we all have wider affects, leave a mark on the world, that we don't anticipate when first starting out on our paths. Link to comment
Fudgie Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 Honestly, I agree with everyone - I'm in the middle. I believe that most success is a combination of luck/opportunity but also hard work. There are people who are born into good circumstances and with not much effort, can remain in those good situations. There are those who are born into poverty and either don't take advantage of resources/aid or abuse them, and they stay where they are. And there are those who are born poor, get access to proper resources, and then use those to better their life. I do think at present time, it is very difficult (not impossible) but very difficult to have people move up in the social classes. It's a multi-facted problem, with major, major issues in our public education system, our health system (namely, how we deal with mental health), and social issues with different cultures. Do I think that there are people out there who abuse the system? Absolutely. Do I think that all poor people are that way due to their poor choices? No. It's a mix of people, including those with a LOT of bad choices, some with a few bad choices (but are really trying to overcome them, with limited success), and some who strive to be more, work hard, but never really end up "making it". Honestly, it's the same with the wealthy. Having grown up in a wealthy family, I can tell you that there are people who got there through hard work and others who got there because it was presented to them and they took it. And I don't blame them for that, who wants to suffer? No one. Link to comment
tiredofvampires Posted March 11, 2017 Share Posted March 11, 2017 I do think at present time, it is very difficult (not impossible) but very difficult to have people move up in the social classes. It's a multi-facted problem, with major, major issues in our public education system, our health system (namely, how we deal with mental health), and social issues with different cultures. Do I think that there are people out there who abuse the system? Absolutely. Do I think that all poor people are that way due to their poor choices? No. It's a mix of people, including those with a LOT of bad choices, some with a few bad choices (but are really trying to overcome them, with limited success), and some who strive to be more, work hard, but never really end up "making it". Honestly, it's the same with the wealthy. Having grown up in a wealthy family, I can tell you that there are people who got there through hard work and others who got there because it was presented to them and they took it. And I don't blame them for that, who wants to suffer? No one. Couldn't agree more with this paragraph. Especially the first sentence. I see it all the time. Which is why I think people who have either never been there, or been there and fall into the "some things coincided to make climbing out more possible" make a grave mistake of over-simplifying the problem when they start preaching about the failures of those who didn't make it, or say "If I could, anybody can", or "Anyone could have done what I did, they just didn't apply themselves." No, no, and no. That old cliche rises again..."until you've walked a mile in someone else's moccasins." It's as true as it is trite. Frankly, I think if I had to sum up what's wrong with this country in a nutshell, it would be, not enough people walking in others' moccasins and then having the audacity to profer an "educated opinion." The other problem is that there are a lot of people who are poor or close to poverty who are working honest professions, while there are extremely wealthy people working in some of the most dishonest, corrupt professions and circles. So in an accounting of what we value and call success, is it that money and means always trumps character and integrity? If "Character is destiny" (same guy who said, "Dogs, also, bark at what they do not know" and "Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed"), we have a collective destiny that is right now very dark in what we have chosen -- or at least, made room -- to idolize. Link to comment
Ms Darcy Posted March 11, 2017 Share Posted March 11, 2017 I do think at present time, it is very difficult (not impossible) but very difficult to have people move up in the social classes. It's a multi-facted problem, with major, major issues in our public education system, our health system (namely, how we deal with mental health), and social issues with different cultures. Do I think that there are people out there who abuse the system? Absolutely. Do I think that all poor people are that way due to their poor choices? No. It's a mix of people, including those with a LOT of bad choices, some with a few bad choices (but are really trying to overcome them, with limited success), and some who strive to be more, work hard, but never really end up "making it". Honestly, it's the same with the wealthy. Having grown up in a wealthy family, I can tell you that there are people who got there through hard work and others who got there because it was presented to them and they took it. And I don't blame them for that, who wants to suffer? No one. This whole conversation, to me, highlights the failure of the education system. Generally, people are brought up to do rote work but not taught how to think critically and how to question things. I think it's nice that people believe anyone can "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and become successful. But there is actually quite a lot of empirical evidence that states very clearly that generally a person's social position in adulthood is a mix of institutional factors (outside of your control ... like the country you were born in and the family you were born into) and personal factors (inside your control). Fundamentally, I think people tend to look at the poor with disdain and the rich/wealthy with adulation. As an example, consider mortgage fraud. Mortgage fraud happens throughout the social spectrum. But when poorer people commit fraud, the losses range from $500 - $200,000. When wealthy folks (usually within corporations) commit white collar fraud, the median losses range from $10,000,000 to $500,000,000. (Think of the 2008/2009 crash in the US.) I don't see people admonishing wealthy folks for sometimes making bad choices? ( ). And I think it's because people view being wealthy as the END GOAL. Well, you are good or smart or deserving because you are rich - no matter how you got there or what you've done once you are there. I would encourage people to separate their own beliefs from facts. We live in a day and age where people use their beliefs to justify their actions. When, ideally, facts would helps drive beliefs and actions. I humbly suggest that we need to read more and really understand how wealth works in the modern world, so I would suggest reading: Link to comment
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