On Being Broke

Let me say this, just to get it out of the way: there is a difference between being poor and being broke. Being poor is closer to having a disease than it is a reflection of social status. More often than not, it is something you’re born into and have little means of affecting. That’s because people born into poverty come from marginalized groups that are crammed into places governments ignore, doesn’t invest in, actively scapegoat, and worse. With few exceptions, being born poor leads to dying poor, because it’s hard to focus on getting ahead when you’re focused so hard on getting by.

Let me say this too, for the record: we could end this disease if we wanted. We could prioritize it, over say, cutting taxes for the megarich or killing people with death robots from the sky or fighting endless regime-change wars (Note: This isn’t me being partisan, this is every president in recent memory minus Jimmy Carter unless I’ve got my facts wrong). If we invested money in the communities affected by poverty, real money that extended beyond an election cycle and was tied to concrete goals for better education, better public transport, better family planning, we could cure the shit out of it. We won’t, of course. There’s no short-term benefit to providing a floor below which none of our citizens can fall, and who gives a shit about what happens a decade from now?

Still with me?

Great.

I’m broke.

Being broke can mean a lot of things. To me, it means I’ve got qualifications and a network, enough that I could build up a fairly decent financial situation for myself if I wanted. I could move, for example, to a country where I’m legally allowed to work. I could apply for jobs where I’ve got relevant experience and with some luck and persistence and a spit-shine on the old LinkedIn I could probably even get one of those jobs. But I don’t. I don’t for a lot of reasons. Primarily because I don’t like a lot of those jobs as much as I like traveling and falling in love and writing clumsy blog posts filled with adverbs and swearing. Look, chances are pretty good I’ll be working until I’m 70 anyway, and fuck knows if I’ve even got that long. Why not spend a bit of my retirement now, when I’m relatively healthy, at an age where a lengthy staircase isn’t a worthy adversary?

A lot of the time, I don’t mind being broke. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I cook a lot and enjoy libraries. I own almost nothing. I bought my computer used. I bought my phone refurbished, which is a fancy way of saying used. I stream movies on websites that end in .dx and .uz. I straight up found my sunglasses.

Here’s some tips from a person who thinks $5,000 is a fortune.

You don’t need meat for every meal.

Used clothes are just as good.

Library books are free and so is chilling in the park.

Walking can be nice.

Look, I don’t think money is a bad thing. I know a lot of people with money and almost none of them are assholes. Shit, I’d love a bit of money. If I’m ever walking through a recently threshed wheat field and find a suitcase lined with unmarked, non-sequential 50’s you can bet it’s going straight under the mattress. Direct flights and macadamia nuts and apartments with balconies are all wonderful, wonderful things. The problem for me is the trade-off. The time and effort it takes to make big money generally leaves you with little time and energy for much else. In the same way that poverty leads to poverty, high-paying jobs lead to plush couches and subscriptions to premium cable.

So how does all this end? Maybe I’ll look up from a mop bucket when I’m 70 at a sea of retired people with bodies rebuilt by science, enjoying their twilight years with perfect skin and a spring in their shlongs. Or maybe I’ll get blasted by a bus tomorrow and bleed out in a storm drain. Who knows? Certainly not me.

And look, I’m not saying I’ve got it right. A lot of the reason I’ve been able to live like this is through sheer, blind luck. I won’t deny it. And I know family logistics change things. Having a sick parent or kids or shit you need to do, so if you feel like I’m judging you, I’m not. I’m just saying that life can take different paths. And while some of those paths don’t lead to much money, they can still be pretty cool.

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