My life is entirely dependent on the kindness of strangers.  I discussed this at some length in “Willy Loman and Me” last week.  This forces the question of how someone survives this way.  As opposed to the somewhat self indulgent, if, I believe, beautifully artistic whining I did last week, I would like to see if I can offer some help to others who are in similar situations.  

I know many people are worse off than I am.  There are hundreds of thousands of unsheltered people.  I have a home.  There are more without medical insurance.  The state pays for most of my insulin and doctors’ appointments.  They pay for every time I have to go to the hospital.  There are others who go to bed hungry more often than I do.  I have an Unofficial Patron Saint who sends me enough grocery money to eat.  I hope, however, that all of these people have someone, at least a dog, to love them.  Love, I believe, is the key to overcoming the horror of being dependent on others who can, at any time they choose, without any obligation even to provide a reason, stop supporting you tomorrow and leave you helpless.  They are well within their rights to do this.

It’s easy to feel defeated, degraded, and relatively worthless in such situations.  If, however, you can find some love in your life, you can focus on that and distract yourself from the humiliation.  You can remind yourself that what you do matters to someone else.  The love in your life is a welcoming light in the distance.  You can still make a difference for someone else.  The love is a warm campfire.  You can still be the cause for someone to hang on another day.  The love is a guiding star.  You can make someone smile.  Love is the sun. Don’t dismiss these acts of kindness as insignificant.  They’re not.  How do you know?  Someone does those things for you, and you make it through the endless darkness that night can sometimes seem to be.  You don’t get to quit while you can still make a difference.  

I know I won’t be able to change the world, but I look for the ripple effect.  I make just enough difference in your life that you make just enough difference in someone else’s life so that they have the power to change the world.  

Sail away, away

Ripples never come back

Gone to the other side

Sail away, sail away

—  Anthony George Banks, Mike Rutherford

In short, first keep your chin up.  There are a nearly endless set of reasons to feel defeated.  Hemingway,  however, taught us that “Man is not made for defeat.  A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”  Can you find a way to get up off the mat one more time?  No?  Okay, are you still breathing?  You are?  Fantastic!  Excellent beginning.  You just lie there and breathe for a while.  Feel those beautiful, blessed breaths.  When you’re on the mat, if you will just keep breathing, in my experience, someone will come and help you up.  It may take a bit, but as long as you can keep breathing, help is still available.  Believe in that.  Sometimes, that belief is all we have.  

What makes people want to help you?  I’ve been thinking much about this.  I get far more help than I believe  can possibly deserve.  I also spend inordinate amounts of time on the mat.  Why do people keep helping me up, bandaging the cuts over my eye, and helping me to heal the bruises?  I have a guess.  I could be wrong.  I’m wrong with frightening frequency, but when I find out I am, I can move one step closer to being right, and that’s helpful.  I think it has to do with what the Romulans called Absolute Candor.  

I almost never speak with anyone except you, my listeners (all 50… on a good week… of you) with only a few exceptions.  I talk to my best friend on the phone several times a week.  I talk to my mother every afternoon at 4 PM.  (It keeps getting moved up because she keeps falling asleep earlier, and now she’s having physical therapy due to her broken ankle, so that’s the best time.)  That call might go ten minutes.  And every week or two I get a phone call from the man who saved my life.  That’s it.  Why is this?

It’s my reaction to my time in California.  It’s also a cumulative effect of the nearly 60 years I’ve spent doing very poorly in general conversation.  When I was in a classroom, I was masterful.  The moment I stepped outside of it, I was a bumbling mass of nerves.  In college, I would go out dancing 5 nights a week.  Can you imagine?  (Actually, I would rather you didn’t.)  I would make my best effort to talk to people in those days of yore, and it rarely went well for any length of time.  Have you ever tried to talk to someone when the band is playing?  Yelling is essential, and I’ve never been comfortable yelling.  On those rare occasions I accidentally became friends with someone, I frequently talked too much, probably to compensate for the fact that I talked so little to anyone else.  And this was a reaction to the fact that in high school I was among the least cool of the people you would ever meet.  That dates back to the insecurity caused by the fact that the first time I ever asked a girl to dance, which, for reasons passing understanding, was when I was in 3rd grade, she laughed at me.  And there you have it.  A psychoanalysis of my entire life in one paragraph.  

What does this have to with Absolute Candor?  I smoke more weed than you do, so it takes me a little while to get there.  It’s coming, I promise.

I live the overwhelming majority of my social life on Facebook.  I know how to use no other social media, and I’m too old and too tired to want to learn, so while I appreciate the offer you were about to make to teach me, I’m going to decline it in advance.  What I have is enough for my purposes.  There are people I know there, as well as well over a thousand people I don’t, and some of them read what I write once in a while.  They comment.  I respond.  We communicate effectively, and, for the most part, kindly with each other.  I get my social interaction there.  

And the reason, I think, that so many of them seem to like me is that I’m as honest as I know how to be.  If that sounds like I’m qualifying it, it’s because I am.  I feel like I have to because of what occurred during the 64 days I lived in a tiny trailer in California.  The number of times I was called a “Fucking Liar” is higher than I care to calculate.  That would require me to relive memories I would rather forget.  It was “four score and upwards” I’m sure.  And the thing is, I never thought I was lying. (If you’re new here, you can go back and listen to “Episode 124: Unlocking The Gate,” which tells the story of my two months of Hell in The Golden State.) 

I was speaking what I believed to be the truth in every conversation, but there seemed always to be a way to twist what I said into a lie, so… I decided to stop talking to people.  Perhaps in oral communication I lie without knowing it.  I wonder if there’s a psychological condition like that.  I certainly never intended to say anything I knew to be untrue.  I may have been mistaken, particularly about things like what day or time it is, or because my memory is practically worthless about many things, especially in my more distant past, but I never made a statement that I knew to be false.  As far as I know, that’s what it means to lie.

If I can carefully control all my communication, I can be as certain as possible that I’m telling the truth.  I often Google things about which I’m unsure, in hopes of getting it right.  I frequently say, “I could be wrong.”  I could.  

I share my life in the most honest way I know how.  When things go well, I write joyful posts.  When things go poorly, I say so.  I’m as objective as I can be about what I write, and I rarely use people’s names.  I don’t care to embarrass those who have helped me, and I make it a rule to avoid attacking anyone who is not a public figure by name.  When I have unfavorable things to say about an individual, I leave their name out of it.  I have no desire to hurt people.  I don’t wish to soil someone’s name in public.  

Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; 

‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands: 

But he that filches from me my good name 

Robs me of that which not enriches him 

And makes me poor indeed.

— Iago, from Shakespeare’s “Othello” Act 3, Scene 3

When someone visits my page, they can feel sure they’re going to hear about my adventures in living.  Many people have gotten to know and love my dog, Speedy Shine, now.  They have been kind about my appearance, even while I recognize it’s not at all one of which I’m proud.  I do my best to behave kindly toward my friends, and many of them reciprocate.  Some are simply unimaginably kind.  

I share what I find interesting in life, and people respond.  I try not to bore my friends by sharing more than matters.  You’d be surprised how rarely I write about my time in the bathroom.  I sometimes feel like I’m writing my autobiography in real-time online.  One of my favorite features of Facebook is seeing my memories every night.  I like to see where I was, and compare or contrast it to where I am.  I like to believe there is growth.  I think people like to see us grow.  I think people like to help others grow when they can.  I could be wrong.

I proceed on the assumption that people are, as a general rule, Good.  I don’t believe most of us have any interest in hurting anyone else.  I know that’s certainly not true of everyone, but I believe it applies to the majority of us.  If I’m right, I can be safe writing about my life.  It’s something like a well-written reality show.  I know… that’s an oxymoron.  We are all drawn to stories.  True stories are often our favorites.  I write mine as accurately as I can.  I believe that’s why I have many friends.  I’m a good writer.  I’m lousy at speaking to people who don’t understand me.  Understanding me requires that you knew me long ago when I was more secure around other human beings.  

So, to survive the feeling of dependency, focus on the love that surrounds you, and add to the world as much of it as you can as honestly as you can.  This improves your chances of keeping the support you have.  Be willing to lose someone if keeping them means compromising your principles or your honesty.  That will cost you more than whatever they’re contributing to your life.

That’s Dependency.  What about Poverty?

First, it’s about minimizing your needs.  The first example that comes to mind is eliminating your car.  For some people who have to get to work every day, this is impossible.  I understand.  (If you’re working, it’s unfair for you to be living in poverty.  This show is trying to change that aspect of the world.)  If, however, you can do without it, you save a ton of money.  If someone gave me a 2022 Camry or Lexus tomorrow afternoon, I would certainly thank them.  They would be an Unofficial Patron Saint in my Gratitudes for the rest of the life of this show unless they specifically asked not to be.  And then I would sell the car as promptly as possible.  It costs me too much to own.  

Insurance where I live is something in the vicinity of $200 a month for a basic car.  For a nice one, it would be much more.  I don’t have $200 a month.  It’s unlikely I will ever have $200 a month.  I can’t pay the insurance.  Gas prices, even though they are dropping and will probably continue to drop, are still prohibitively high.  If the car isn’t new, it will probably require maintenance and repair often.  I don’t have the money for that, either.  If I were to buy a car, the car payment, by itself, would finish me.

So, I live without a car.  If I need to get somewhere, I use Uber or Lyft.  I try never to go anywhere at all.  That saves more money.  

Since I have limited money, I prioritize.  Rent is the first thing I do when I wake up on the morning of the third of the month.  My Disability check is there, and before I even get to the bathroom, I’m paying rent.  Without a place to live, everything else is irrelevant.  

Next is my phone.  It’s due on the 4th.  I have to have that.  I need to communicate.  When those are paid, I ask my Uber Driver Friend, Wally (not his real name), to get me my cigarettes.  I need to make it through the month without a nervous breakdown.  I order groceries, and the first thing that goes in the cart is my Diet Pepsi.  It’s over for me without caffeine.  Then I look to see if I have any money left.  I usually have very little, but I still have Patreon coming in a couple of days.  It usually arrives on the 6th.

The rest of the month is about deciding what I need most.  As soon as Miss Maudie Atkinson (no, that’s not her real name.  She’s the neighbor in To Kill a Mockingbird.) sends grocery money every month, I order pork chops and hamburger.  I need protein.  Those are my special treat dinners.  I don’t eat vegetables.  I eat a lot of frozen burritos and more ramen than I would prefer to eat.

Anything left is saved so I can get groceries for the rest of the month, and for the little things I may need.  This month my ultra powerful Desktop Computer that my nephew built for me when I retired in June, 2016 died.  No, I couldn’t afford to replace it.  I tried to get someone to fix it within my budget.  (I was hoping for $100 or less.)  I was unsuccessful.  The only person I could get to come out wasn’t sure what was wrong, but he couldn’t get inside the computer because it has a lock on it.  I lost the key five moves ago.

I took the problem to Facebook.  Someone offered that night to buy me a new desktop.  I was blown away.  That hasn’t happened as of this writing, but it was still incredibly kind of him to think of me.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he changed his mind for any number of perfectly acceptable reasons that are precisely none of my business.  The thought gave me an evening of ecstasy, and I’m grateful for that.

Many people tried to walk me through repair possibilities.  Nothing worked.  I was grateful to all of them for their efforts.  

Someone suggested getting a dongle that I could attach to my MacBook Air that would allow me to use my big monitors and extend my screen.  He even posted a model I could use from Amazon.  It was $276.  I’m sure it’s excellent.  It’s entirely out of my budget.  

I did several Google searches and finally found something that would do what he suggested for about $45.  That was, if I am exceptionally careful for the rest of the month, within my budget.  I just hooked it up a couple of hours ago.  It’s working beautifully.  I couldn’t be more pleased.  I would still love the new desktop, but if that doesn’t happen, I can make it work with what I have.

That’s sort of a key to surviving poverty.  Find a way to make it work with what you have.  Clothing and furniture need to be functional more than fashionable.  The only furniture I own now is a bed a kind person gave me four or five years ago.  The rest is left over from my landlord.  The furniture is financially worthless, but I can sit in the easy chair, and I’ve slept on the couch several times.  I have a couple of desk chairs.  One I got from a Thrift Store several years ago.  The other was a gift.  I don’t remember the last time I bought clothes.  These are fine.  I need to wash them at some point, but the dryer here doesn’t work, so I have to fit sending them out into my budget.  I’m hoping for next month.  The dongle took precedence.   

Try to save enough money to treat yourself, just a little bit, once in a while.  Sometimes I order Uber Eats. They’ll deliver Church’s Chicken or Jason’s Deli.  When I have a little extra, I get those.  I feel happy until I feel guilty.

I don’t even consider the possibility of cable.  I have a few streaming services that are much cheaper and allow me better choices than 900 difficult to navigate channels filled with enough commercials to make Holden Caulfield suicidal.  I think engaging ideas found in television shows is part of what makes me able to write.  I would be nowhere without Star Trek.  I have just started watching its polar opposite, The Handmaid’s Tale, and the horror causes catharsis that sends me to the keyboard.

Finally, I try to accomplish one thing a month.  I had to get the backyard cleaned out to make it safe for Speedy Shine.  That was one month’s money.  I had to make the kitchen sink stop leaking.  That was some of my money and some of my landlord’s during another month.  I don’t ever want to ask him to repair anything here if I can possibly avoid it.  I’m getting it at half price.  I’m enough of a liability as it is.  I don’t want it to cost him extra for me to live here.  I had to have bookcases so I could unpack my books.  There’s little point in owning them if I can’t actually read them.  I tried lots of cheap ways to do that, but I finally wound up getting some concrete bricks and pieces of wood, and I had my best friend’s current boyfriend pick up the stuff at Home Depot and put them together for me.  That was a couple of months worth of money.  

I can’t possibly do everything at once, so I choose what seems most urgent, and I do that first.

This can all be gone tomorrow, but at the moment, I’m typing at my computer on my big keyboard attached to my little MacBook Air, looking at it on the monitor that is connected to that same surviving set of circuits, which was, itself, a gift.  The Carpenters are singing “Top of the World” to me.  (Someday, I’ll be rich, and I’ll be able to license the songs to which I refer, and I’ll just put them in my show.)  Speedy Shine is lying on the chair behind me.  My soda is on the Home Depot box that pretends it’s a table next to my desk.  My bong is still half full, and it’s sitting a foot or so to the left of my keyboard on the desk.  In short… I’m doing just fine right now.  And right now is all any of us have.

I ain’t gonna dim my light for no one.  Don’t you, either.