Eat The Rich

I don't care what some 30 year old movie says.  Greed IS NOT good.  Greed is bad.  Greed causes conflict and suffering.  Greed kills.  And you DO NOT get filthy rich by hard work or good fortune.  Those are lies.  The ONLY way to become a millionaire is to hoard wealth, to be greedy and take more than you need or deserve.   The ONLY way to get rich is to be selfish, willing to steal food from the mouths of children.  You aren't a saint because you're rich.  You aren't special.  You're an asshole because while you're living like royalty, someone out there is living in poverty BECAUSE of you.

The rich need to understand something and it's a very important thing.  You only get rich by exploiting the poor.  Your empire is built on the backs, on the labor and sweat of the working class. Without us, the rich cease to exist.  That deserves respect.  That deserves a wage we can live on. That deserves healthcare we can afford.  That deserves a cessation of outsourcing our jobs to third world slave labor.  We aren't asking for the rich to bless us with their charity.  We're asking for what we deserve and if we have to fight, we will do what we have to to survive.

The poor didn't start the class war.  The rich started the war by creating excessive poverty with their wealth hoarding.  Yet just like our ancestors before us, from the French Revolution to Occupy Wall Street, we will fight.  We will not bow down and worship the wealth hoarders.  It will be messy.  It may even be violent, but the day will come when we rise up against our masters yet again and it will ONLY be avoided by the wealthy recognizing what they owe us and treating us with the respect we deserve.

A Friend Request Doesn't Make You Friends

I don't entirely blame Facebook for the misconception we have as a society regarding the word "friend".  We've misunderstood the word long before Facebook came along.  But a friend request isn't the same thing as making a real friend.  You're actually just making an acquaintance.   You may share views, likes, dislikes et cetera, but you don't know them on a personal level and they don't know you.  You are associates, casually aware of one another in a continual social situation.

The misinterpretation is apparent in most of our social interactions.  We assume that because we see someone often that they are a friend.  We work with them.  We bowl with them.  We live next door to them. We see them at the coffee shop every morning.  But when are their birthdays?  Who are their parents?  What are the names of their children?  Do you know your way around their kitchen?  If disaster was to strike and you needed their help, would they be there or have some excuse why they aren't?  Would you lend them money?

To become friends requires history and the intimate knowledge of one another that only comes through that history.  To become friends requires more than mutual respect.  It requires love.  Yes, you can love someone without sex.  To love your friend is to accept them unconditionally through highs and lows yours and theirs.  It's to make them an extended part of your family.  Most importantly though, to become friends requires time and effort.

This is not only on your part, mind you. The person you are trying to become friends with must put in the work too or it isn't a friendship.  Anyone can do you a favor and expect something in return.  A true friend will do you a favor and not even think to ask.

We may have many associates and acquaintances in our lives, but there are very few in our circles who can, by definition, be called friends.  It is wise to know the difference.  That way, you know who you can count on and who you can't.

I prefer to be more cautious than most with who I allow to share my friendship with.  This means a smaller circle of trusted friends and by society's standards this small circle means I'm not as "popular" as I'm supposed to want to be.  Yet, popularity contests are won based on false pretenses and I prefer quality to quantity.  Does this make me antisocial?  If so, then I embrace my antisocial status and encourage others to do the same.

Anyone can say they're friends.  They probably aren't.  There is no crime in putting substance first in our relationships and if we all were to do this, we may find ourselves less popular but more fulfilled.

You're actually not entitled to anything

So many people out there feel themselves entitled to something.  It's not just the one percent feeling they're entitled to more than their fair share.  Whether it's minorities who feel entitled to a pedestal because of slavery or the working class who feel entitled to higher wages to escape poverty, EVERYONE feels entitled to SOMETHING.  I myself feel that if I'm forced to give my wages to Social Security and welfare services,  I should be entitled to use them when I need to.

But I can't.   I'm very poor, true, but I'm an able bodied single woman  with no dependents so even if I do have to live on Ramen noodles, I don't qualify for assistance.  The painful truth no one wants to admit is, NO ONE is entitled to ANYTHING.

We like to think we are.  We constantly bemoan our situation.  We say we're entitled to freedom, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We deserve to make enough money, to live in a safe environment, to have goods and services.  We deserve the right to free speech and to have a democratically elected government.  We deserve good roads to drive on and enough food to eat, electricity and running water and libraries and even PBS.

But we're not.  Truth is, the things we want out of life, the things we think we deserve, they don't just magically appear.  SOMEONE at some point had to WORK to make those things happen.  SOMEONE built and maintains our roads and public services.  SOMEONE fought a war for our freedom.  SOMEONE created our government from scratch and SOMEONE created Social Security and welfare programs to help the poor.  SOMEONE is working right now to keep our neighborhoods safe.  EVERYTHING we have today is because someone WORKED to make it happen.

If you want a better life, you can't sit on your ass waiting for one to come along.  You have to make it happen.  Yes, you will struggle.  Yes, you may not get as far as you want to.  Yet if you don't do ANYTHING, then you don't get ANYTHING.

And if we WANT to keep having the things we think we deserve, then SOMEONE will have to WORK to keep them.  Guess what.  That someone is you and me.