I live in an unheated, unfinished, bare, concrete and cinder block basement in a hundred year old building which used to be a factory and was abandoned for a decade. I sleep on an old piece of foam, and for the first few months I lived here, I didn’t have even that; I slept in a chair. I have two pieces of furniture: a desk and a chair, and both were salvaged from the trash. I don’t have a fridge or stove, and I have to take sponge baths in the sink because there’s no shower or tub. My income for the past 20 years has not exceeded $10k US per year. My food budget is between $50 and $100 per month. My shoes are patched the duct tape and I haven’t bought clothes new, off the rack, in more than a decade—I buy it all second hand.
Most people would consider me below even the level of utter destitution, living in conditions very few people outside of a native reservation experience in the developed world. And yet, despite this, I have managed to found two NGOs and am currently renovating this building by hand to act as a union hall and cultural centre for promoting the traditional hobo arts. The last time we looked at the books, I had pumped $6000 out of my own pocket into this place over a period of two years. In order to be able to do that has meant having no luxuries whatsoever: meals are eaten raw or from a can, no movies, no books, no haircuts, no trips, no restaurants, no new shoes, no cough medicine when I get sick, and when my clothes wear out they get patched or duct-taped and pressed back into service.
Yet despite all of this, I would consider my existence reasonably comfortable. For entertainment I have my computer and the Internet, and to relax I have my pipes and tobacco (which I now purchase raw and process myself to save money). Income alone doesn’t tell the whole story. Certainly my existence is considerably more satisfying and life-affirming than that of most of the people on Fluther, as near as I can tell. I’ve sacrificed entire years of my life in order to accomplish things someone with a middle class income could have done in 15 minutes with a Mastercard, but would they have the same satisfaction I’ve gotten? I think not.
Certainly my life would be much more pleasant with, say, access to a shower. Or a warm and comfortable place to sleep. Or hot food. Or enough money to buy socks without holes. But I can and do make do without, and I need comprimise for no one. My life is my own.
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” – Friedrich Nieztsche