Poverty

Well here I am. In Nepal. I am still unsure of how I got here. I know how I got here, by a 15 hour bus ride through a crazy country! Actually so far Nepal has been good. Apart from the episode at the Hospital (this will have to be another blog for another time). But I had a very kind taxi driver return my wallet. When I realized I had lost it I almost went into cardiac arrest. Instead of cardiac arrest I had an emotional melt down, which involved me saying how nobody would ever return my wallet because everyone in this country just wants money. BUT I WAS WRONG. Through a variety of events involving my first ride on a motor cycle through the streets of Nepal (without a helmet, don’t tell my mom!), reporting this to the police and in the end listening to lots of people chatter to one-another in Nepalese to realize that they had found the taxi number and driver who had my wallet. He didn’t even realize my wallet was in his cab still! Anyways when he found it he called straight away and the hotel manager with his handy motorcycle went and picked it up.

I was blown away by their kindness.

This is extremely hard to remember when you are surrounded by people who seemingly want to use you for your money. I don’t even have very much money. But in comparison. It makes you re-think the term “poverty”.

I have been thinking about poverty a lot lately. And I am completely stunned by this issue and by this problem. Poverty according to secular humanists is a problem created by humans and moreover created by an economic system that is based on means and gains through monetary value. According to the philosophy behind our economic system of “Capitalism” we have the Free market. This means that Capital gain goes to the individual who has the most power (or who owns the most capital). But in the free economy money is suppose to trickle down to everyone. I can appreciate how people say that communism does not work because people are flawed. But I lack the ability to see how Capitalism works because people are flawed. Or how the people who are on the top (the individuals controlling the capital) really are going to allow the money to “trickle” down. And if they do, they are still deciding how much and where it trickles. I am sorry, it all seems so naive.
But I am getting off topic.

So my question is. What is poverty. According to the dictionary (please note there are many definitions and all of them are equally as vague as this one) “The state of being inferior in quality or insufficient amount”. Inferior in quality? But who is setting the standards for quality? Or even amount? What is the right amount, and how do we know who is getting it and who isn’t? As I lived in Calcutta I began to realize the lines for this are very blurred. Is it quality of life to ensure that everyone has a bed? O.k., if that is the case then we should let everyone have beds But in some cultures, it is tradition to sleep on the ground. How are you going to fit a bed in a tiny little hut? Then do we decide that if someone has a bed they need sheets? Well then you have to be able to wash the sheets so they need soap. This is not at all how many people are use to living their lives. Then you start to wrestle with ideas of wealth. What does it mean to be wealthy? And if people are living in “poverty” and we want to limit this should we put limits on people who are living in wealth? For example, if we decide that everyone needs a bed then do we decide that everyone needs the same kind of bed? Well who decides what that bed is? And then there is the whole concept of NEED. Do humans really need beds? Who defines needs? Maybe in the West not having a bed is living in poverty because our “quality” of life is that you must have a bed. So it is all society biased?

So I look at the mass amounts of “poverty” and I begin to think. What really does it mean for these people to have “quality of life”. Well according to the U.N., they need clean drinking water, shelter, and nutritional food, education etc. But then how much clean drinking water? In the West we waste 10 leaders of clean drinking water every time we flush the toilet, so is that the amount of clean drinking water that is required? Or is it one bottle of water every other day? Ah!

What do we want from the poor people? To not be poor. What does this mean and how? The problem is much of the poor countries that exist look to the West for a model. If India with it’s fastest growing population in the world wants its “poor” to think and behave and consume like the West then we are in REAL trouble. The world can not sustain it’s natural resources alone with how the West consumes, never mind a country like India.

As my mind is whirling about all of these things, I begin to notice something. There are some poor people who don’t mind being poor (how we define poor, they are very content with their lives). And there are some who are miserable being poor. There are some people who are miserable being rich, and there are some that are happy being rich. So is that the goal, to be happy?

Nope…I think it is deeper. There is something to be said about ego and individuals who have found peace within them and the world around them. I am all about eradicating poverty, but in the same breath I almost feel like I am all about eradicating wealth too. So before anyone wants to label me as a crazy communist I almost want to stop and say….WHAT are we fighting for? What can I as a human do for my fellow person?

Love. Gah…how lame I know. But really. I think there is something very deep and profound about this. Instead of me trying to convince individuals here that they need to be more like me, or need to have a bed or adopt my particular meta-narrative I think we need to learn to love. And we need to learn to love on their terms. I know this frightens most people. So how do we do this? I think in many ways it starts with asking. For my fellow Indian I ask, what does it mean to love your people? It means to sit down and have some Chai, to tell jokes, to try and understand their religion, to have a meal with them, or to just be-friend them. Loving relationships can not always be about “helping”. Sometimes the best thing you can do is sit and just be with someone. Now obviously this is uncomfortable because we like hard fast rules. We must love in this way and through these means. And how WE perceive we SHOULD love. But like everything else in the world it is more complicated than that. And the mistakes through history I hope would teach us to be a little more humble.

If you have not watched the soloist I HIGHLY recommend you do. It is all about learning to love people on their terms. That does not mean encroaching on them with a subtle messages but to sit down and really just genuinely want to know what makes them tick, without wanting anything back from them.

Of course it gets tough because there is boundaries and ego’s involved. We must be aware of these things. But maybe what I am learning is that instead of assuming I know how to love, I should instead try to understand what it means to love that person from their perspective.

Time consuming and hard.
And right now I suck at it.
But alas.
Life is about lessons.