An Essay A Day For A Year
By Roe
Day 46, February 15, 2012
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When I travel the world I tend to gravitate towards the underbelly. When I say underbelly I speak of the part of the world where poverty and crime and suffering are palpably visible. When I speak of the underbelly of the world I speak of the places where tourists and people of wealth and high standing are warned not to go. That is an irony since as someone born and raised in the United States, some of the most unfortunate underbelly’s of the world are right here on rich American soil. How embarrassing.
I tend to gravitate towards the world’s underbellies because I experience visible life right on the shirt sleeve, so to speak. True human suffering is found at every class and educational level, and in both genders and every race alike. But when I travel to Wall Street or Saint Tropez I intuit suffering, an intuition felt by me from beneath fine clothing and exquisite pallets. When I visit the “projects” or “slums” or “neighborhoods” or “townships” of the world, I don’t need to intuit much. It does not take much to experience fear, or hunger, or promiscuity. Suffering and death is easy to see without a finely honed intuition.
As a feeling person and person who inspires people with feelings, I experience the underbelly of the world as very exciting, very scary, and an extremely sad place to be. It is uniquely rewarding for a person in search of self and inspiring the same in others. This I found was not possible as a spectator, and the prophets of the streets continue to teach me of the reality of living the underbelly, as opposed to the mere study or practice of it. I have been told that I had to walk the walk before I could talk the talk, and I hesitate today to do any talking of misery and suffering, rape and illness and death, until I have earned my colors. I have learned that I cannot earn colors of the underbelly from the outside in. I have learned that I cannot simply drink and drug and fight and fuck and be hungry to earn colors. The inside of police cars or jails, or the soup lines and filthy streets in the rain all night do not award colors out of sport or hobby.
I want to speak of a different kind of colors since my own suffering can never truly be underbelly. One would assume that cutting edge philosophy reigns in bourgeois academia, yet I have been awed regularly by the core tenets of humanity by what society calls “common” criminals. One very powerful color of underbelly is that there is no common criminal. But the common criminal did have a mother and a father. One would assume that a virgin royal on the alter might have the market cornered on chastity and purity, and hold our highest ideal of dignity. I have experienced powerful colors of the underbelly as I have witnessed cheap street whores rail upon the tenets of chastity and purity and dignity. And every whore has a mother and a father.
On and on I go comparing and contrasting the mere ½ hour drive from East Los Angeles to Beverly Hills, and the very short metro ride from the filthy rich Lomas of Mexico City, to the infamous black market slum of Tepito. I have taken this voyage all over the world, from the Champs Elysee’s in Paris to the African banlieue in 20 minutes, from the Parque in San Paolo to the favelas in mere minutes. Why are some people in the upperbelly, and why are most down in the underbelly. Hate, anger, suffering, death, crime, prostitution, drugs, they are in both places. The underbelly has a patent on hunger and exploitation, and for wearing the colors of pain and suffering where all can see.
I have found a pattern of suffering in the only commonality that we all share, and that is parenting. The quality and level and ability of and freedom and time and devotion and resources of Mommy and Daddy influence the position of the upperbelly and underbelly more than any other factor. Simply sending money and education and opportunity into the underbelly is no doubt a help. Simply sending compassion and resources and quality time for parents to parent their children safely and effectively would help a lot more. I have underbellied and overbellied enough all over the world to realize that the core issues and traumas and deprivations of all go far beyond poverty and suffering to Mommy and Daddy who suffered, and then passed down the suffering.
Wall Street and Silicon Valley upper crusters break down into rage and tears at the seat of their problems, and Tijuana drug dealers and teenage sex workers break down in the same exact rage and tears when they reach their own seat. No one speaks of which neighborhood and what food, or lack of, but all speak of the parent that was needed and let them down. Princess Royal is no less heart broken in India then her $3 counterpart sold to a brothel in Mumbai at the same age. A high class African businessman cries no differently at the loss of his lifelong dream of playing the Soccer that was denied him, then the poor boy carrying the rifle in the Sudan.
I feel for myself and all that I hoped for and was hurt for, and I grieve the loss of my parents that fell short. In the underbelly I have had tears of the same exact song fall upon my shoulder from people who have colors I could never earn. “Why was I not seen. Why was I not trusted and believed and approved of and protected and loved? Why was I not made to be important and valuable and matter in the eyes of my parents? Why have I been let down?” This is the song of all, and we all hide it in different ways. In the underbelly of the world the colors of parenting are easy to see, and the parents wear the same unfortunate colors of the children who grew up in their place, just like we do.
Poverty and suffering are feelings that realize out of poverty and suffering. And poverty and suffering are parented. I have not found any differences in humanity between the filthy rich or the filthy poor, except that the filthy rich are not hungry, and the filthy rich have a choice to hide their own colors of suffering for their own lack of parenting. Many speak of the need to eradicate poverty and suffering, and the world has the wealth and resources to do just that. But when those with power and wealth are suffering for lack of loving parenting no less than the colorful souls of the underbelly, we continue with the myth and fallacy that we are somehow different. We are all the same. We all have a Mommy and a Daddy. It’s time to bring parenting out of poverty.
See you tomorrow.
yourpersonalmuse@gmx.com
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