I've been thinking for the last few weeks about what to write in this post. There have been a lot of ideas rolling around my head, most of them were some sort of strange slant on the idea of poverty that would probably not have occurred to many people and would probably not have made much sense.
But then, this morning, I asked myself why the hell I was so determinedly avoiding the idea of just talking about POVERTY. No slants, nothing unusual, just poverty.
The answer? Because I don't know what it is.
Sure, I have the mental picture of the starving kid with flies buzzing around his head, or the homeless guy on a park bench covered by newspapers. A mental picture is all it is though. Someone else's pictures projected into my head by TVs, computers, mass media - the very things symbolic of my own relative affluence.
Of course, there are times when I have to be frugal. That means not going to a football game, or not heading off on some whimsical trip somewhere. I don't know what it is like to have to struggle to survive. I don't even know anyone who knows what it is to face poverty on a daily basis. I teach English to wealthy professionals and their kids, I translate for successful companies. There is no part of my life whatsoever that is touched in any way by poverty.
I'm ashamed of that. And I think I am not alone. And, excuse the disgusting, pathethic idealism, I want to change the world. Or, failing that, just someone's world. Maybe even just mine, just so I can rationalise and understand if nothing else.
