poverty or POVERTY

Am I poor? I really don’t know the answer to that question. I don’t feel poor. All my needs are met. Perhaps poverty like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There are different kinds of poverty. There is the stereotypical hillbilly poverty with a front porch full of old appliances and a front yard full of partially dismantled cars and beer bottles. There is the stereotypical ghetto poverty where kids fight over who has the correct NBA jacket and expensive sneakers endorsed by the right sports celebrity. There is the sense of entitlement poverty where people wonder why the government is slow “getting me my money” and “my benefits”. There is the Benedictine/ Buddhist poverty where men and women purposely take a vow of poverty to live a simple life. There are the back-to-the-earth/self-sufficiency types who also want to return to the simple life and opt out of the rat race. There are those who just feel that most of the economy-produced products are so much clutter in their lives and garages. Poverty can lead to simplicity and simplicity to order and order to happiness. A degree of self-sufficiency can lead to a sense of security and security to happiness.

Of course there is the government established poverty level of income to decide if one is poor or not. But this “poverty line” income is constant across the country and the cost of living varies greatly depending on the location, even from one county to the next. I had a conversation with a widow this summer who complained about paying thousands of dollars in land taxes. Judging from our conversation, her property was quite similar to what I owned. Her property is near the county I live in. “You need to move across that county line,” I said. I only pay a couple hundred a year.

Then there is the concept of land versus income as an indicator of wealth. Remember land is that stuff that they quit making. The small acreage that I own in the country would make me a wealthy land owner in Rwanda, Haiti, China, Japan or any number of other places on the face of the earth. Are people with higher incomes who live in a big city on a dab of land richer than me? Who knows? If I want anything a city or town has to offer, I just drive in and get it. I am not trying to brainwash anyone or proselytize, but if someone has adequate health care, then the simple back-to-basics lifestyle has much to be recommended for it.

I need to cut this short. I want to go out to the garage and see if there is anymore junk I can get rid of. Simplify…simplify…simplify.