I'm Rich. Like a Hot Noise.

I've always been poor. But only when it comes to finances. I've never been hungry-starving in need of food. I've never felt I was missing out on what the other kids had--cool clothes, fun activities, etc. My parents, hard-working working class have given me luxuries many children never receive--such as the ability to find the best bargains, the appreciation of materials, and respect for hard work and dedication (amongst other things).

Without their hard work I never would have worked so hard myself--though my work has been mainly in academia and I only have three pieces of paper and looming debt to prove it.

Yet I wonder, as a poor person, will my hard work will ever amount to anything?

I can work and work and work and yet I'll still have debt.

And everything I want to do career-wise doesn't really pay. Writer. Artist. Non-for-profit.

So what am I doing?

Am I just stuck?

Are we all stuck wherever we land? Because let's be honest, the boot-strap mentality is a dream; a myth created to make us think we can pull ourselves up. They make movies about it because it's a rarity. Because it's what we're supposed to believe to keep ourselves going. To keep us poor people from rioting, from actually doing more than just complaining about it.

It's the dream that one day we to can be be like the rich, "if only." What a great tactic! I mean, what better way to keep all of the poor, working-class, middle-class people running the country while the rich laugh at us and use us like dolls, puppets, worker bees.

People with the best ideas on how to change the world are the people who need it to change the most. But, these people have no avenue to actually see the change through. (Because why would the people in power want our world to be any different?)

Everything I want to do costs money. Lots and lots of money. And no matter how hard I work I will never get that much money--unless something miraculous happens like I invent the next silly bands or my grandma wins the lottery and hooks me up.

So I have to beg.

Rich people! Rich people! Will you invest in my ideas, will you allow me to do what I want, will you be my savior, my one and true god?

It's disgusting. Rich people disgust me. And of course I am envious of them because they can do whatever they want. Yet I hate them because what they choose to do sucks. They have no creativity. They rely on us poor artists to be their souls. And that is bullshit.

But we're so "lucky" to have their support because without them what would we be doing? Rolling around in the mud? Rubbing one out into customers' double soy macchiatos? Bending over backwards so they can stick it in while we act like we like it?

Wait.

What?

Isn't it great that we've been told year after year that we can "do whatever we want" be "whoever we want to be."

That idea is only true if somebody else buys it.

And poor people can't afford to buy other poor people's work. And that is why the rich stay in power and the poor's rich ideas on transformation are rarely, if ever felt.

It's D.I. Y. or Die.