Everyone Always Says "Give Me Money!"

So, if you've read this blog & know my stances on things you know that I'm not someone who came from privilege. You know that I actually had to (gasp) WORK to get where I am. I didn't have parents, friends or most importantly, money to get me places. Much of what I've been able to do was based on my own abilities, good fortune and some smart people who saw a spark in me.

For instance, I'm still working on that vlogging opportunity but I found out I'll have to get an iPhone 4 instead of an iPhone 3 for it. Now, I'll have to pay about $100 for the iPhone 4 & while I'm able to afford it I've been having a moral conflict on getting one. How come, you might ask?

Well, I feel a bit decadent about spending $100 on it. I also feel like I'll become a cliche of an elitist since the newest model just came out this week. I'm also not an early adapter or even a present time adapter: I'm a late adapter, God damn it! This ruins my concept of myself as a late adapter & is a cruel irony in my book.

However, to reconcile this I've told myself that maybe I should treat myself once in a while & stop living like a miser. I tend to be very much in that "live like a student" mindset though I'm certainly not the cheapest or most frugal person ever.

I do have my limits: no reused sandwich bags or compost piles. There will also be flush toilets anyplace I live. I'd also consider hiring someone to pick up my husband's comics if we had $ for it. No living somewhere unsafe & no Dollar Store underwear.

I think this is foreshadowing for if I make real $ & everyone having to yell at me about spending some of it vs. living as though going out to dinner one evening fucks up my entire budget for the month (this was true when I was a student). If people don't do it, I could easily see myself becoming one of those old people who lives in abject poverty only to die with an estate worth hundreds of thousands of dollars & up. I do veer more to that direction that spendthrift territory.

Today, I was listening to a telephone seminar on a topic I found interesting. However, I'm to the point of not wanting to go to free programs on anything pertaining to the entertainment industry or creative things in general. Let me explain.

Every single damn time I go to a free program on just about anything, you always without fail hear a presenter telling you you MUST have money to do things. You have to pay for publicity, rent a theater, get an agent, etc.

Now, while I do agree that you get what you pay for and quality does have a price the whole process of that just bothers me. Then, when someone makes a money grab afterwards, it really hits the point home for me: If you don't come from money, you shouldn't even bother improving yourself or your life.

"Don't bother writing a book, creating a 1 person show, writing a film, going to a good college, anything. You don't come from money so who cares if you have any natural talent or skill!"

That's what I feel like telling someone to pay for stuff is implicitly saying. This is also an ethic you'll find all through law school. If you ask me, a chimp with a million dollars could be on law review b/c that chimp could afford study aids & anyone without a million dollars can't, regardless of any natural intelligence or ability. Coincidentally, this is the primary reason I think the class ranking system in law school is utter bullshit & that people hiring for jobs seem to ignore this reality in hiring.

If you're going to tell someone they need to have wads of cash to do something, why not tell people HOW to make money? Saying "go beg to family" isn't an option for everyone. If I had that, I wouldn't have anymore student loan debt.

How about a seminar telling someone how to get a benefactor? Or how to make money without demeaning yourself (no telling someone to work as a stripper or turn tricks)? While we're at it, how about telling someone how to make money without breaking the law or demeaning themselves?

Any chucklehead can say "Oh, you need money to do that." How about suggestions on ways to get benefactors or who to network with so we can get around those hurdles? How about suggestions on networking events where we might meet these people?

I find "Get $10,000 [or some other high ass crazy amount you'll never get in this lifetime unless you live with your parents or start breaking the law]!" or "Ask Mommy & Daddy for $," to be as useful as the average law school career services center (and you know how useful they are if you've been to law school; if you haven't, their helpfulness is nil at best).

This whole attitude that you must have money to do anything doesn't inspire someone who came from nothing to dream or bother working on those dreams. Nor does it encourage one to do anything pro-social (i.e. work an honest job, get an education, do something that helps society vs. harms it). Hell, I think it encourages people to become teen parents, sell drugs, never do anything beyond whatever sector of the economic ladder they were born into.

Is the US a fiefdom or can one actually get anywhere? What do you think? I'll say this: if I believed I was never going to do better than where I came from, I'd have killed myself long ago after taking out my oppressors.