For the first time, really, I'm understanding what it means to be part of the working class and to have that constant sense of desperation. It stems from the feeling that you're working too hard to lose any ground. I realized I understood it and felt it myself when I asked myself earlier how I'd react if someone tried to physically set me back somehow - ie, if I was attacked. My instant reaction, my first thought, was that I would tear the person to shreds. I could even visualize myself defending myself with the knife I carry with me and anything within reach... or even just my bare hands. I honestly think I could put up a pretty good fight knowing what was at stake.
I'm also started to feel increasingly alienated and am reacting by being more and more isolationist. Most of my friends don't have jobs. Some don't seem to have any consideration for the effort and time that go into having a job while in school. I'm starting to see a lot of the problems on which they focus as trivial or highly avoidable and not worth the time anyway. Most of my peers, especially at my school, which is packed with fashionably-dressed kids whose parents continue to pick up the tab for everything, don't have the faintest idea what this desperation feels like. I am so desperate to survive, so desperate to succeed. I don't want to put so much effort into something and have nothing to show for it. As a mostly self-funded student, I'm forced to spread myself thinly - full-time school and 50 hours/week of work will do that - and as a result, I'm just not doing as well as I could at any of the things I'm doing, which means I have less to show for any of it than I should. But still, I feel this desperation, and it is a relatively constant source of anxiety.
I guess this is also a reason why suicide doesn't really interest me the way it once did. It just seems stupid with how hard I work every day just to pay bills. Even getting sick is a huge frustration because I lose anywhere from 5-20 hours' worth of income each week that I'm sick, but I still feel as fatigued as I would if I had done classes and both jobs every day.
I also am understanding more fully how much government fails, especially here, in Boston. The government has so much territory to cover that it fails miserably. Take transportation in this city. If you're dependent on public transportation, buses and trains are rarely on time and nearly always overcrowded. Keep in mind that the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) is substantially subsidized by the government. I should also note that the price of subway fare has doubled (from $1 to $2) since I first came to Boston in the summer of 2004. If you drive, you face a) horrible traffic, only made worse by the buses and pedestrians (who seem to have no idea that if a car hits them when they walk into the street without looking, it could very easily kill or maim them); b) paying $200/month for a parking pass or anywhere from $8-$40/day for parking; c) drivers who have little or no respect for traffic laws or driving practices commonly accepted everywhere else, only encouraged by a police force that seems to be completely unconcerned by people speeding, running red lights, or doing various other illegal things; d) crazy cabbies, enough said; e) a rampant lack of signs, including those labeling streets and anything regarding laws, as well as faded or completely eroded lane markers and other important markers (like "left turn only") painted on the roads; f) random potholes and construction here, there, everywhere; and g) a completely mad maze of city streets to which there is no method. The best, safest, most sane way of getting around in this city is walking, and even then, you have a fantastic chance of getting hit by a driver running a red light while speeding. Or just a driver who hates pedestrians and is out to take one down - even if you're careful and you look both ways.
How else does the government fail? I know there are housing laws about living conditions and state inspections, among other things. I want to throw these things in my landlord's face. But I can't. Why? I can't find them. Not a guide, a memorandum, a copy of the laws, a listing of them... nothing.
I called the police a few weeks ago. My upstairs neighbors were setting fireworks off INSIDE their apartment, which is, quite obviously, a fire hazard. I care about this because I live below them. The police obviously don't care who sets what buildings on fire, because they never showed up.
Why do I care about this so much? Because I pay an arm and a leg in taxes out of my paycheck every week. Seriously. Between social security, Medicare/Medicaid, and general, ambiguously-labeled federal taxes, I sacrifice roughly 25-30% of my paycheck every week. That's a LOT when you're not getting paid much. It's also ever more frustrating when I think about where those taxes are going. Social security money goes to a retired person who paid for the social security of the elderly people when he was younger... except that when I'm that age, there will be no more social security money. Awesome. Medicare/Medicaid goes to paying for the health problems of people I don't know who could have brought these things on themselves by eating excessively and allowing themselves to become obese, by smoking or drinking (or both) excessively, or generally by not maintaining proper health habits. So, no matter what I do to maintain my own good health, I'm still paying for expensive health care. As a matter of fact, I pay roughly the same amount each week for my own health insurance as I do for Medicare/Medicaid. So, basically, I'm paying for another person to have health insurance. Sorry, but when did I decide to have a dependent?
At least I know where those are going. The ambiguously labeled "Federal withholding" taxes are what really piss me off. Thousands of dollars of my hard-earned cash are going to... I really can't tell you what, especially with government budgets becoming ever more vague as the government wastes our money away. I thought the point of democracy was for people to have a say in their government? I know I don't support most of what's going on right now, but I'm still paying for it. That would be fine if the government provided basic infrastructure, but with the examples mentioned above, I'm not so sure it's doing a good job of that, either. Government seems to support the big corporations and anyone who isn't making enough money to support himself. So the people stuck in the middle get screwed over, and we're paying the government to do it. Awesome. What was that I was saying about suicide earlier?...
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