Relative or Absolute-Where am I?

“Oh My! I’ve been poor,” This realization dawned on me when the sun dawned five hours before I woke up at eleven in the morning. This thought could have come as a continuation from a dream and could have been converted as a waking thought. A thought that would wake me up as a reminder of how I’ve been and what I should be doing in the next, available few hours before dusk.

Having ‘not-so-great-work’ to be done in the morning, my only option was to switch the Television on and witness the ‘Market Crash’, ‘Recession’, ‘Job losses’, ‘Pink slips’ and ‘labor strikes and protests’ against various companies by its own employees. But, all these everyday ‘newsmakers’ mattered the least to me. What would all these matter to a jobless of a specific field i.e. to a writer? ‘Recession’ or ‘Revival’- an unpublished writer is always jobless and he wakes up at eleven in the morning or, worse, late in the afternoon.

There are two types of poverty: (1) Relative poverty and (2) Absolute poverty. I could hardly distinguish which one of the two I was in, in the stats list. Relative poverty is one where poverty is relative. In other words, one is poorer than the other. An individual or a family is poorer than the others. One is poor when compared to a person of higher income. This type of poverty exists predominantly in the west. But, On the other hand, Absolute poverty is one where poverty is Absolute. In other words, there is complete poverty that an individual suffers. Absolute poverty is one that predominantly prevails in countries like India, the third world and other developing Nations - Earning less than a dollar a day and not being able to make even three meals a day. Individually, being jobless, I suffer absolute poverty. But being backed up by a rescue team called ‘family’, I make myself comfortably and complacently placed and poised in the relative poverty Stats List. There are enough definitions of these concepts by economists divided amongst themselves as Socialist Economists, Communist Economists and Capitalist economists, one claiming the other wrong.

Avoiding a stray away from the topic, I’d say that Relative Poverty has a different version to it which I’m in - Something I would call the ‘Modern Day Poverty’. Coiners can choose better word for this not looking for my prior consent. ‘Modern Day Poverty’- The poverty of lower ‘Talktimes’ and lower ‘Internet Surf Times’. Though these have become accessible in terms of price, they still are evasive at times to certain people monetarily. It’s also because this has become one of the basic necessities-Food, Clothing, Shelter and Communication. A lack in the ability to communicate has also become a form of ‘Poverty’. But, I do wonder, if this could be called ‘Poverty’, or if this is an issue related to ‘Consumerism’ in the ‘Communication Market’.

However, inability or the lack of it, in availing a service or a resource that has become essential, inevitable and inherent, is of course, poverty in any form, any day and in any way. This is a rather self-realizing conclusion that I make to myself. There is so much to look for and look out for these days, that I forget, “Oh My! I’ve been poor!”

Provided by website-hit-counters.com .