Posted by alexandra_k on March 30, 2015, at 21:31:43
In reply to Re: population vs individuals, posted by alexandra_k on March 28, 2015, at 21:08:40
so... the socioeconomic class / status thing is really hard to measure...
but my grandfather (on my mother's side) was a methodist minister. and they had a reasonable sized farm out in the country... with a couple of houses associated for farm hands and their families...
and then he harboured guys who didn't want to fight WWII (general pacifism) and was briefly imprisoned and lost the ministry and became... bitter and resentful at the church and god and so on... and he took to ranting...
which is perhaps slightly familiar. hur...
and so mother (the only girl) got married about a year out of school... to a guy who was a TV repairman... which was fairly skilled, i guess... she said something about how they were the first people to get a tv...
and then... things turned horrible... and eventually... she left him. two girls... two adopted boys... the eldest boy wanted to live with him (and so did) and she took the rest... and went on welfare.
because... uh... because it was a viable option, i guess.
and was disowned for a while... because she was about the first person to get divorced...
i think... my mother's side of the family... our fortunes kind of come and go... just a box of crazy, really.
something something.... i have an uncle who goes about the country... he's very tall and charasmatic and... intense... and sometimes he gets a bit of a following of a community and then they lock him up (he starts thinking he's the son of god and breaking into people's houses and preparing them dinner and then inviting them to come in and sit down on their return and he tries to tell them about giving up materialism in order to commit to a life of good works... till they excuse themselves and manage to phone the police...)
at least...
stuff i sort of piece together. it is hard to know since they're all a box of crazy...
my dad... seemed interested in this lady with the 4 kids... or... 3... i guess only my brother was home when dad and mum got married... the girls had left, i think. soon as they could...
mum said that she didn't think that he had much growing up... some of the stories he would tell about what it was like for him and his sisters...
anyway...
i don't really believe in genetics, or whatever, (too much interbreeding, not enough evolutionary time etc etc etc) but probably... my lot was quite different...
we lived... between two state house / ghetto areas. sort of... elderly people in attached units. so... a little crime, but not too bad... no drug people about... etc... mum calls it a 'mixed area' and i suppose it is fairly mixed lower-middle class... the high school etc... point being... since she was on welfare... we could have done a hell of a lot worse. and the lost of most others was worse.
she picked a north facing house with a concrete floor (hard to explain -- but heating in this part of the world... it made for a relatively warm and dry house)... i always had lots of books about. not just bibles ha. she seemed to know education was important...
something about... relatively early (first marriage) on her father gave her some money and she put it into savings... and learned about compounding interest... and so kept that up... and you can keep money in bonus bonds and it doesn't count as money / investment... but you can draw or... i don't know... i don't follow... but point is... we didn't lack money for anything we really needed... but she was all kinds of crazy stingy about things... and she still is in weird ways... some kind of... obsesive compulsive thing... i'm realising... anyway... somehow she's feeling rich now that she's retired because she actually is richer than she's ever been before...
i don't really understand her... she's a box of crazy. but i think she'll be okay...
she keeps visiting old folks community village type places and gets all excited to visit friends when they go off into homes and stuff... i've told her to spend her money however she wants. if she wants to go here or there then to do it. i really don't expect her to leave me anything. i mean... i feel like... my life is my life fro me to make what i will / can of it. money she's sacrificed and saved for is... her own. and she sort of looks sheepish and says that i didn't get a lot growing up because she was saving... but... whatever. point is... i'd rather she be happy in some unit in a community with a little garden and friendly faces for her to monitor their comings and goings... or... whatever makes her happy. i'd rather that. because... she went without stuff too. anyway... she smiles and says she'll be okay. and... i sort of think... that she will. yeah.
not entirely sure what is to become of me... but i guess i have some sort of faith that i'll probably be okay, too.
my grandfather was one of the first people in his community to go to university. the one i'm at now. he got his masters degree in religious studies. and philosophy. because it was just the one department. i could be wrong abotu this... but i'm fairly sure...
so...
and even me... now... sure... i'm on disability etc but my lot is a lot better than most. i'm very lucky.
they put up this thing today... something about 'health directives'... usual thing about quitting smoking etc. then they said they had the other version (not written by the rich white people) and it had health directives like 'don't be poor. or if you have to be poor, don't be poor for long'. and 'if you are going to be poor make sure you use the time when you are rich to learn to fill out the forms you will need when you are stuck for housing and healthcare etc' and so on...
anyway... i'm not entirely sure what i'm ranting about... maybe just that... things weren't as bad for me as they were for lots of other poor people out there... the huddling ones. and of cousre we thought the solitary vs gregarious locusts were different species because they looked so different with such different morphologies and behaviours and... developmental. turned out to be.
anyway... time to go study...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1076978
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20150214/msgs/1077938.html