Food!

So its been a while now that I have been skipping meals, buying less nutritious food, eating smaller meals, and losing a bit of weight.  I haven't bought meat in months it seems.  I check prices and just walk to the bean section.  I've decided that eating meat when I eat out makes more sense.  You pay maybe a dollar extra for meat in a restaurant other eatery, as opposed to like six dollars a pound minimum for some kind of low grade meat.  Now of course NYC is really expensive, the highest in the country by far.  But that's I guess all part of it. 

In the last month I have been forced to really address these issues.  I have started looking at Food Pantries and finding ways to get food without paying for it.  I have not been dumpster diving as of yet, but others I know have been.  It is part of what the world is coming to it seems, even as we throw away millions of pounds of good food each year.  I have been really lucky that my mother has runs a community garden that gives its food to the needy.  I have been the recipient of bags of kale and other produce that have kept me healthy of late.  And that is no small thing.  Healthy food is expensive. 

But I have gotten to the point where enough is enough, I no longer can keep trying to spend money I do not have on food.  I spend my days trying to apply to jobs that don't seem even remotely interested in me, have few if any prospects at this point, and will possibly be homeless in just a couple weeks.  I have no place to turn for help in my situation.  Family, the government, neither really has the means to solve my income issues.  It is only up to me it seems, yet, resume after resume I am getting no where.

So Friday I applied for food stamps.  They were quickly approved and I picked up my card today and went and bought some meat.  It's actually probably not the best impulsive decision as 200 dollars of food a month does not go very far, especially in NYC.  But this is the way it is.  I will be back to beans the next trip to the store.  I will start trying to strategically mix home cooked meals, and food pantry stuff.  This is an issue for me though as I have these allergies.  If I want to be at my peek - the best position to get a job - I need to be able to get the right food in me.  But hey, I'll have to take what I can.  I stopped eating wheat for 3 or four days last week and started felling pretty good.  Even the bike accident injuries seemed to heel a bit.  But immediately, one weekend back eating wheat and I could completely see the difference, even started having issues with hypoglycemia again.

It is amazing what food insecurity does to people.  The system itself is set up in a way that does not put me in the best position to succeed.  If I had no dire need to find food and shelter, and could put my best foot forward, I would be able be the best I could be.  But that is not where I am right now.  So I have to take what I can get.  I am no longer able to support and provide for myself.  Hundred's of job applications in the last three plus years and little to show for it.  I have tried, and anyone that says otherwise I would love to have words with. 

But as of now, I am one of those many people out there on "entitlement programs".  One of those many that some how don't feel like they have to work hard, that can just skate by and live off everyone else's hard work, right?  Yeah, like facing death in West Africa to better your resume, trying to start businesses, non-profits, and volunteer endeavors, officiating girls lacrosse, selling shoes, applying to schools, etc.  If you think I haven't tried, haven't educated myself or worked my ass off to make a place for myself then you are out of touch with the world we live in.  I am not an exception, I am just another of millions - in fact billions - throughout the world that just want to work hard, and make a difference in their own and others lives through these efforts and the fulfillment of their abilities.  The world is failing us, just as I am failing in my job search and ability to support myself.  But hey, at least social services in New York City treated me with dignity and respect.  That is a far cry from the way social workers treat you upstate in Poughkeepsie. 

Why there is no money in changing the world

It's simple and systemic.  We live in a world based on power and the accumulation of capital as its principle means of expression.  Power does not want the world to change.  The powerful, like it the way it is.  The Romney's, Goldman CEO's, Bush families, Koch Brothers, and such (yes, there are plenty of lefty rich people out there to include here as well) that are just fine with their lives.  The rest of us sadly though struggle to become more of them, less of ourselves.

I have a friend right now that splits time doing real work trying to keep greedy businessmen from stealing land from indigenous people in the developing world, with editing food and cooking publications.  Seemingly one actually matters to people's lives and the other does not matter as much.  People being dispossessed of their land, their livelihoods, and their power, in the name of someone else's profits, somewhere else's appetites, and somewhere else's energy or mineral needs is abominable.  But it happens - last year to the tune of land the size of France.  Recipes and tasty tidbits of the 1st world are well... not important.  I mean, yeah, I like a good meal.  But the fact that there is plenty of money in editing gourmet cook books and so little in saving people's lives and livelihoods is to me the cornerstone of the problem in the world today.

This is the same situation I am in and have been in for years.  There is no money for changing the world, thus so many fewer jobs.  She wants to work full time and support a life doing food and agricultural justice work, yet it doesn't pay enough.  I want to do similar things with economic and social justice, but I'm not getting anything there either.  The labor market is simply too tight with too many people applying for the same positions.  The powers that be don't want the world changed, and the powers that be are the ones with the money.  Thus they have no interest in funding change in the world.  So the non-profit and activist community scrapes by.  There are just never enough jobs, never enough money, never enough help for those around the world (and in the US) being dispossessed, having their land stolen, their lives stolen, trafficked, killed, raped, whatever.  It is these crimes in far away lands that allow us in the "1st" world to have enough food and time to buy cook books and experiment with new types of food, as opposed to using what food is available, eating as nutritionally as we can, and trying to simply maintain enough human security to live happy productive lives for ourselves and our communities.

The problem is simple, for all of us to find economic and social avenues towards success we need to change the power structures affecting us.   That is just exactly what my friend and I want to do, but we can't commit ourselves fully every day to it.  The greed and feeling of entitlement to power those with it have is so entrenched as to never allow us enough money to change it (I'll write more on the entitlement component of that later).  This hold has lead to all sorts of outcomes.  At the behest of this power, governments are cutting grants and funding programs, corporations have become people, private individuals are driving things with their agendas, and the average everyday person can't find the means to fund or work full-time towards true change, nevermind food and shelter in many circumstances.  So what do we do?   How do we bring change without the tools needed to change?  What is the power of the powerless?