Sans Fig Leaf
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"From where I'm standing"
1 March, 2007
Recently an acquaintance was grumbling about the fact that the weather had been gray and drizzly with absolutely no sign of sun for a whole week. Both Michael and I had almost identical reactions: what alternate universe Seattle are you living in? Because almost every day in the week in question I had had to adjust the blinds in my office window in the late afternoon because of the blinding sunlight making my monitors impossible to read. I had also had to dig out my sunglasses several mornings that week while awaiting the bus.
I thought about it some more, and remembered some conversations I'd had with friends who worked in different offices and realized that it might be a case of timing and access. My office operates on a more flexible schedule than many do. My work day starts around nine most mornings (and goes until after six), and my commute is a short 25-minute bus ride. Someone with a more typical office work schedule has to be at their workplace, inside the office, by seven-thirty or eight. Depending on the length of their commute, they are leaving before sunrise and heading home after sunset during the winter months.
My office has a window. Lots of people don't have that luxury, and it's easy for me to forget that just because I can see when most of the clouds burn-off in the late afternoon, not everyone else can.
Even though we may live and work in the same city, we can experience very different weather.
Note that I said "experience," not "perceive." Many people, when asked to look at things from a different viewpoint, will dismiss it by saying, "it's all a matter of interpretation." By which they mean they think the people who don't see it their way are delusional. They may, out of politeness, pretend to give these other viewpoints consideration, but they certainly aren't taking it seriously.
Such as a discussion I observed a few months ago where one person was trying to claim that poverty in our country is an illusion, because so many poor people are overweight. They can't be poor if they eat so much, right?
The problem with that argument is that a balanced diet costs a lot more than an unhealthy diet. Certain interests in society have convinced most people that food health is just a matter of choice, but the cold, hard numbers don't lie. That's just the price of the food--then you must factor in that storing, preparing, and otherwise dealing with fresh food incurs a lot of hidden costs. It takes more storage space and time to prepare fresh food than consuming high-fat, high-carb pre-packaged foods and fast food.
When you take into account that most adults in the lowest income brackets are working at more than one low-wage job, trying to keep their kids in school, and/or supporting elderly relatives, it's no wonder that the faster foods dominate their diets.
Another example is a story I heard recently about a kid at an elementary school who was constantly late. His homework was often incomplete. He regularly fell asleep in class. As a consequence he was always being punished--being sent to detention instead of recess, kept after school, not allowed to participate in certain activities.
Someone eventually investigated and discovered that the child was living in the back of an old pickup with his grandfather. They were homeless and had no other living relatives. They were surviving by scrounging and day labor jobs the grandfather landed. Not circumstances conducive to keeping a regular sleep schedule, let alone getting to the library to do research and so on.
We can argue about whether the grandfather should have turned his grandson over to child protective services or a similar agency. But then you have to look at the statistics about how successful foster care programs are. And don't forget to ask yourself, if it was your grandchild, could you hand him over to strangers? Or would you clean to the hope, however slim or farfetched it might seem, that one day soon you're going to catch a lucky break and be able to give him the childhood he deserves?
While I believe that life is what you make of it, I also understand that our choices are often more limited than we like to admit. Sometimes all the alternatives available are bad. No matter how wise you are it's not possible in that case to make a good choice.
It isn't just about interpretation. It isn't just about foolish choices versus wise choices.
Just as the person who described the weather as gray and drizzly wasn't deluded just because he didn't get to experience the bright moments between the gray.
--Horace
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