I overhear him telling his mother about a gorgeous studio apartment he was applying for. Hot tub, gym, free arcade, $1300 per month.
My mind begins racing: That apartment costs $500 more than my current monthly income and three times my housing budget. My residences tend to have no heat and maybe a window that doesn’t close, or the cracks in the wood floor reveal the crawlspace and ground below - forget about a gym. I tend to be surrounded by a half dozen house mates, not a vacuous studio apartment.
My face burns as I spiral into shame about the luxuries I may never experience, forgetting that I’ve been comfortable more often than not in my lifetime, forgetting that some people never have. I feel shame about my consistent failure to achieve economic prosperity, forgetting that money is fake and love is the only currency. I feel afraid that I might be even less comfortably housed in the future, forgetting that I have survived and occasionally thrived among the cockroaches and cold drafts.
I hear him ask his mother to send him $300 for the application and deposit and my brain ignites with envy. What a luxury it is to have a parent who readily gives money, and not even for an emergency. What a luxury it is to have access to money to throw at problems, relieving time and energy to solve others. I consider how much of my life I spend solving problems in ways that minimize money involvement, and wonder who I might be if I didn’t have to solve in this way. I reflect on how quickly I could work through each challenge with the expediting element of money, forgetting that I already do this while billions of people solve their problems with far less. My gut hurts from the delusion.
He ends the call and reveals something to me which changes the trajectory of the downward spiral. Addicted to gambling, he gives a certain amount of his money to his mother for safekeeping. The $300 he asked for was his own.
Turns out, I am comparing myself to an illusion. Rather than the recipient of an endless stream of money, this man struggles with addiction. He reveals that he lost $2K this month gambling, and although overall he receives an amount of money which sustains his lifestyle, the income is unpredictable and the pains of addiction are real.
It makes sense to me now, why he deals cards as his employment and plays them on his off hours. Why he plays an online slot machine while relaxing in the bath.
Other things begin to create a narrative about his relationship with money which contradict the easy life I had been imagining. The ten-year-old Lexus with the cracked dashboard and rattling AC fan which reminds me of every vehicle I’ve owned now appears to be chosen for its value as a class symbol above all else. Perhaps he would rather appear a certain classy way to others than drive a more affordably-repaired car.
His recent launch of a remote reiki service and the ensuing excitement he shared about acquiring paying customers seems to reveal that money infiltrates every part of his life, including his spiritual life. Possibly he attaches money to his spiritual life in order to maintain a class standard, or perhaps because he is addicted to earning, or perhaps he commingles the two for another reason. But his entanglement of spirituality and money now seems less-than-consensual.
I had thought he was enjoying the bountiful flow of money in and out of his life, but now I wonder what pain he is feeling in his day-to-day, whether he feels exhausted from maintaining pretense or from staying financially afloat. Does he feel like he must play a part to impress others, or is he struggling with programming that he does not recognize? Under capitalism, he is trapped just like me. Our chains just look different.
A $300 Class Illusion
Beautifully written reminder that we don't know what is really going on for anyone behind the facades we see in the day-to-day