What Worthy Cause? [Part One]

 

When I saw yesterday that the President of the USA couldn't even answer a simple slow-pitch question about the Declaration of Independence it embarrassed me so much that I wanted to immediately fly into exile, maybe Portugal because some people I respect have gone there themselves. The problem is my income depends on me living in one of the United States, which does not include Puerto Rico and does not even include Washington DC. (The capital of our empire is not a US state, y'see.) 

 

Knowing nothing about the country and even less about its language I can't imagine figuring out a way to survive there except living on the streets, which I could do here in the USA and even still get SSI so I won't have to beg to buy food or do laundry.  There are people I know I could ask for money to live overseas, everybody I know who's close to my age has more money than I do, and it wouldn't be very expensive for anybody because I'd rather several people pitch in a little than depend totally on any one person.

But I can't picture myself actually asking (not seriously anyway), partly because I really figure out why they should give me money. It's not like they'll ever get it back, unless I win a lottery or something, and my life ain't worth insuring so mortgaging my carcass won't work. What works when people ask me for money is that they ask politely, they clearly need it, and I can afford it: I follow the KISS principle because it's easy, I'm a lifelong slacker who doesn't even need to 12 Step first.

 

I bring up this generosity as if it's a noteworthy principle because anybody desperate enough to beg from me is unlikely to be able to pay it back. I give gifts, not loans, because the people who kept me alive in the mid-'80s never insisted on being repaid, guessing correctly that I wouldn't be able afford to in the foreseeable future. And back then too I couldn't come up with a really good why reason they should support my crazy self.

 

It was true that I really needed it, that I asked politely, and tht they were physically able to (whether or not it was a good idea for them), but I've never been able to persuade myself that I really deserved it. Like, really, who am I? What is my abstract worth as a human being, and why should I be worth anything to them? (Maybe that's another example of Depressive Realism, which by the way is not required to be inaccurate.) So now that I can afford to toss a few bucks here and there to anybody I take what seems like the proper attitude based on the example shown me, i.e. they ask politely, they need it, and I can afford it (at least for now), which seems like enough to me.

 

Then too I can't think of anything non-cash to ask in return. What do I really need that I can't somehow do for myself, except maybe to go into exile overseas? (It's too bad nobody in Portugal asks me for money, I could turn that into renting space on their floor to sleep in.) Decades of poverty have taught me that it's better to do things for myself (and to do without what I can't), and that stuck so well that now that I have credit cards I'm pretty careful with them. There are so many things I can do without. Then there's basic common sense, like asking her to drive 500 miles to take me shopping across town sounds a bit extreme to me.

 

So here I sit, too broke to do more for somebody than buy her some as or help with a veterinary bill. (I'd like to find them a better place to live, but I just don't have a good way to do that.)

 

And anybody I know who's better off than I am might want to know why they should help me live in exile in Lisbon (or Kolkata, or Melbourne), and the only answers I have don't seem quite good enough. It's not like I'm tax-deductible, and I'm not cute and sweet enough that anybody needs to hear me purr or watch me wag my tail.

 

So for now I have to live on a small fixed income, in a small apartment that's getting roach-infested again, in Lexington, KY, in a country whose aspiring dictator can't even say what the Declaration of Independence means to him. 

 

Obviously I'm much better off than a lot of people, but even so I doubt anybody in my anticipated audience would trade places with me. And to persuade myself that I'm worth a damn I remember how I lived this long, because otherwise I can't come up with a decent answer.

 

So. Like. You know. Here I sit. I cannot do otherwise.