We are. (boom boom) S. I.
I went to St. Ignatius, or, as we used to say, S.I. That's a Jesuit college preparatory in San Francisco. Class of '89. We actually chanted (when we were losing), 'it's alright, it's okay, you'll be working for us someday.' God. On the plus side, the motto was 'Be a man for others.' It went co-ed the year after I left, so I assume the motto has changed. Anyway, now I've got this other S and I, sadness and inequality, on my mind. We are..Sadness..Inequality.
Sad, sad, sad. Truly pathetic. This is what I want to talk about. I supposedly have schizo-affective disorder, I know someone with seasonal affective disorder, and, of course, there's social anxiety disorder. Sick and diseased, sad and depressed. Someone I know is going through paxil withdrawal, and they're DSM: depressed, sad, miserable. He says he's been crying a lot, and even says he's suicidal. He's apathetic, and doesn't have a doctor. There's just too much sadness. He mainly says he's tired.
Joke: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but it takes a long time, and it has to want to change.
Life is unfair, and can be hard, and the mass of humanity lives lives of quiet desperation, that are nasty, brutish, and short, to quote a few well-worn phrases. But seriously, I've done some research that I want to share with you. I'm going to crunch some numbers, and I would say they uncover the raw deal of being human this day in age. Of course, there are happy poor and miserable rich.
As of February '08, there are around 6.7B people on earth. Specifically, wikipedia quotes 6,649,117,069. To the person. Damn. The world product, i.e. the sum of all the GDP's, comes to around 48.2T U.S. dollars. That's T as in trillion. Specifically, 48,245,198 million U.S. dollars. That comes out to $7,255.88 a year for every person on this planet, IF the money were distributed evenly and we collectively desired equality. That's $19.88 a day. I think we could all live great on that.
The inequality is savage. The top 1% of humanity owns 40% of global assets. The top 10% owns 85%. The bottom HALF owns 1%.
There are 946 billionaires with 3.5T U.S. dollars. Almost half of humanity lives on less than a dollar a day. That's 1.22275T dollars a year for 3.35B people. That's the top 77 billionaires, with about 1230.7B, i.e. with 8B to spare. These are Feb. of '07 figures.
There's some iffiness to it. Vladimir Putin has anywhere between 150k and 41B. As the rich get richer, they probably have more by now. Carlos Slim Helu, who overtook Bill Gates as the world's richest person, on August 8, 2007, had 68B dollars that day. Warren Buffett is reported as the world's richest person, as of May 2008. He predicts a long and deep recession.
And people have the gall to say, what are people worth. As if anyone is worth 68billion times more than someone else. We're all born equal, you know, they say. The declaration of independence being "they." Seriously, though. WTF?? My god. Madness.
If you've got food, shelter, and love, though, who cares. It doesn't take wealth to live with passion. In fact, poverty can be liberating, in some instances.
Getting angry at this state of affairs is a rational response, though. It's crazy. I'm sorry, but there's more to life than money. I certainly don't believe it's a game where he who dies with the most cash wins.
I'm also pro-life. I'm anti-war and anti-nuclear weapons. How can you not be? I'm anti-death penalty. I've got opinions, and I therefore have those opposed to me. I don't know about enemies, exactly, but people with an interest in my poverty and being neutralised, if I'm really as powerful as I think I am. I am not paranoid, though; I'm sensible.
I believe their is a link between poverty and conflict. Development leads to peace. If you're angry and unemployed, you're gonna start some s**t. I wouldn't mind being richer.
I am on Social Security/Disability, and receive a fixed income (about $6300/yr). I'm on 4 medications (risperdal, risperdal consta, depakote, and lexapro) which cost about $16,000 a year. I've been off my medications. I don't think I've ever been a danger to myself or others, for the most part. People just got scared of me.
A doctor told me not to work. I like my life, aside from my symptoms: I get head shocks, chest pains, and a voice. There are other symptoms, like tapping fingers and teeth. I wonder if I could be healthy if I just got the 16K. I'm kind of a loner, but I've definitely got a few friends: shout out to my peeps!
I consider my voice telepathy, and I subscribe to the tenets of the Hearing Voices movement. I even consider the possibility that I may have something different from what other diagnosed schizophrenics have. Who cares, though, really. My invisible friend talks back, or something. I suppose he's "real." I'm the figment of his imagination, just as he is of mine, if you want to put it that way. His name is David Andrew Eldridge. Hopefully, we'll be rid of each other.
When you think you've got it bad, just look at the numbers and cheer up. You're probably rich, relatively speaking, for starters. Although the poor's relative poverty can be seen as depressing, too. Is your bank account half empty or half full? I live well on over 22,000 a year. That's about 60 a day. I'd like to say I can't complain, but I really can.
I went to St. Ignatius, or, as we used to say, S.I. That's a Jesuit college preparatory in San Francisco. Class of '89. We actually chanted (when we were losing), 'it's alright, it's okay, you'll be working for us someday.' God. On the plus side, the motto was 'Be a man for others.' It went co-ed the year after I left, so I assume the motto has changed. Anyway, now I've got this other S and I, sadness and inequality, on my mind. We are..Sadness..Inequality.
Sad, sad, sad. Truly pathetic. This is what I want to talk about. I supposedly have schizo-affective disorder, I know someone with seasonal affective disorder, and, of course, there's social anxiety disorder. Sick and diseased, sad and depressed. Someone I know is going through paxil withdrawal, and they're DSM: depressed, sad, miserable. He says he's been crying a lot, and even says he's suicidal. He's apathetic, and doesn't have a doctor. There's just too much sadness. He mainly says he's tired.
Joke: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but it takes a long time, and it has to want to change.
Life is unfair, and can be hard, and the mass of humanity lives lives of quiet desperation, that are nasty, brutish, and short, to quote a few well-worn phrases. But seriously, I've done some research that I want to share with you. I'm going to crunch some numbers, and I would say they uncover the raw deal of being human this day in age. Of course, there are happy poor and miserable rich.
As of February '08, there are around 6.7B people on earth. Specifically, wikipedia quotes 6,649,117,069. To the person. Damn. The world product, i.e. the sum of all the GDP's, comes to around 48.2T U.S. dollars. That's T as in trillion. Specifically, 48,245,198 million U.S. dollars. That comes out to $7,255.88 a year for every person on this planet, IF the money were distributed evenly and we collectively desired equality. That's $19.88 a day. I think we could all live great on that.
The inequality is savage. The top 1% of humanity owns 40% of global assets. The top 10% owns 85%. The bottom HALF owns 1%.
There are 946 billionaires with 3.5T U.S. dollars. Almost half of humanity lives on less than a dollar a day. That's 1.22275T dollars a year for 3.35B people. That's the top 77 billionaires, with about 1230.7B, i.e. with 8B to spare. These are Feb. of '07 figures.
There's some iffiness to it. Vladimir Putin has anywhere between 150k and 41B. As the rich get richer, they probably have more by now. Carlos Slim Helu, who overtook Bill Gates as the world's richest person, on August 8, 2007, had 68B dollars that day. Warren Buffett is reported as the world's richest person, as of May 2008. He predicts a long and deep recession.
And people have the gall to say, what are people worth. As if anyone is worth 68billion times more than someone else. We're all born equal, you know, they say. The declaration of independence being "they." Seriously, though. WTF?? My god. Madness.
If you've got food, shelter, and love, though, who cares. It doesn't take wealth to live with passion. In fact, poverty can be liberating, in some instances.
Getting angry at this state of affairs is a rational response, though. It's crazy. I'm sorry, but there's more to life than money. I certainly don't believe it's a game where he who dies with the most cash wins.
I'm also pro-life. I'm anti-war and anti-nuclear weapons. How can you not be? I'm anti-death penalty. I've got opinions, and I therefore have those opposed to me. I don't know about enemies, exactly, but people with an interest in my poverty and being neutralised, if I'm really as powerful as I think I am. I am not paranoid, though; I'm sensible.
I believe their is a link between poverty and conflict. Development leads to peace. If you're angry and unemployed, you're gonna start some s**t. I wouldn't mind being richer.
I am on Social Security/Disability, and receive a fixed income (about $6300/yr). I'm on 4 medications (risperdal, risperdal consta, depakote, and lexapro) which cost about $16,000 a year. I've been off my medications. I don't think I've ever been a danger to myself or others, for the most part. People just got scared of me.
A doctor told me not to work. I like my life, aside from my symptoms: I get head shocks, chest pains, and a voice. There are other symptoms, like tapping fingers and teeth. I wonder if I could be healthy if I just got the 16K. I'm kind of a loner, but I've definitely got a few friends: shout out to my peeps!
I consider my voice telepathy, and I subscribe to the tenets of the Hearing Voices movement. I even consider the possibility that I may have something different from what other diagnosed schizophrenics have. Who cares, though, really. My invisible friend talks back, or something. I suppose he's "real." I'm the figment of his imagination, just as he is of mine, if you want to put it that way. His name is David Andrew Eldridge. Hopefully, we'll be rid of each other.
When you think you've got it bad, just look at the numbers and cheer up. You're probably rich, relatively speaking, for starters. Although the poor's relative poverty can be seen as depressing, too. Is your bank account half empty or half full? I live well on over 22,000 a year. That's about 60 a day. I'd like to say I can't complain, but I really can.
No comments:
Post a Comment