Poverty is timeless. Its resilience as a way of life speaks volumes not of those that live it but of those that do not.

There are many who suffer in poverty and misery with little hope of respite. In counterpoint, there are multitudes who speak of ways and policies to “fix” the problem. And yet, the problem persists. However, I believe there is a way to end poverty, but it is not easy. In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo’s Monsieur Myriel, also known as the Bishop of Digne, offers us the solution.

Preface

There are no ways to sugarcoat some of what I am about to say. Likewise, I can hardly say it without also feeling hypocritical. What I am talking about is an ideal, but inevitably, we all fall short. What each of us is able to do for another person varies as much as our personal circumstances.

So just to be clear, I am not trying to condemn anyone nor make anyone feel guilty. I hope only to inspire and to change people’s hearts. I wholeheartedly believe that we have a purpose in life, and that it is to become better people than we were before, a daily effort. Such is the work of a lifetime not a moment. It is the commitment of day after day of effort not the time it takes to read a blog post.

Please take this for what it is, an honest opinion from someone who is also trying.

Poverty Has Few Escape Routes

Without getting too personal, I know a little bit about what it’s like to be poor. Maybe not so much poverty, I was never homeless, and I always had food, but not wealth. We ate pancakes for many days in a row because that was all we had. I know the feeling of helplessness when you think there is no way out of your situation. It’s been a long time since I felt like that, but I remember.

When I wrote about homelessness in my post A Tale of One City, I really wanted to emphasize one thing. Those that are in need are not “somewhere,” they are all around us. They are here right next to us. And because of that, because they appear to have all the opportunities we who are not poor have, it is easy to say that they are just lazy (or whatever other term you want to use).

But that is not true. For people that “have,” most things are actually pretty easy. For those that “have not,” many things, even simple ones, become very difficult.

Monsieur Myriel

Monsieur Myriel offers us a glimpse of another way, the only way, to truly end poverty. Victor Hugo knew life. He was a realist and he brought his realist and realistic views to life in Les Mis. I believe he truly understood the plight of those in need.

His character, Myriel, is an example. This bishop interacts directly with Jean Valjean, one-on-one. The bishop does not donate a sum of money to a local charity and then go home feeling good about himself. Instead, he intervenes directly in this unwanted person’s life, and Valjean becomes a guest in his home. While there, the bishop learns about him personally.

Not only that, but Myriel understands even better than Valjean the ex-convict’s plight. The bishop knows the challenges Valjean will face and provides him with means that Valjean would otherwise be incapable of obtaining. He shows Valjean mercy beyond what the ex-prisoner has earned. He meets him not halfway but all the way, asking nothing for himself in return. His only demand is that Valjean take the opportunity given and make something better of his life.

We Are Them, They Are Us

This is the way to cure poverty. This is the way to make it better. Each person is unique and needs attention, resources, and focus. Every person needs to feel not that they are part of a system that will “fix” them or of a process that will take care of them. They need to know that there are people watching out for them personally and that they will eventually be able to make it on their own. This can only occur with individual effort from two sides.

Most people expect “someone else” to take care of these problems. I think many of us feel like we pay our taxes (or make a contribution) and the government (or the charity) will handle the poor people. But that is not the way things really are.

Perhaps in a utopia it would function that way, if the utopia had poor people. But we live in the real world. And the real world is hard. It does not, is not, working ideally. What that leaves is opportunity to make a difference.

Facing Poverty Head On

It’s no secret that I love Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. I write about it frequently—I used one of his quotes as the tagline for my website—and I really believe it is one of the most applicable pieces of literature ever written. In the musical, which I also love, the bishop sings a song that touches me no matter how many times I hear it.

Here’s a youtube link to it:

https://youtu.be/elp47TSQZVc

At 1:47 in that video, the bishop sings the line “come in, sir, for you are weary.” He goes on to invite Valjean to share essentially everything that he has with no strings attached. There is an incredible amount of courage in this statement, “come in, for you are in need.” What action could you or I take of comparable quality?

I do not think you have to invite every homeless person into your house. But I do think that if you want to make a legitimate change, you have to do something that is very likely outside your comfort zone. And it might be hard. You have to feel like that bishop felt, like you might be wasting your effort on someone who won’t appreciate it.

But, this is the attitude that we need to have to truly help those in poverty. Whether or not the person is grateful, we have to take the action.

As I alluded to at the beginning, the reason poverty persists is that those who could alleviate it do not. If we all behaved as M. Myriel, we could collectively make an incredible difference in the lives of those in need. What does it really say about us if we just wait for the government or some other organization to do the right thing? We can do the right thing ourselves.

The Importance of Doing Right

There are numerous themes and messages in Les Mis, enough to write many more articles than this. But the overarching themes to me are two. First, that we can all choose our destiny and who we are, there is no predetermined course for anyone. Second, that the importance of doing what is right and good far outweighs any comfort or luxury we feel we deserve.

I’ll leave the first of these for a different discussion. The second, however, fits with my current topic perfectly. Immediately following the bishop’s acceptance of Valjean into his home, Valjean steals everything of value and flees the scene. He is caught the next day and brought back to the bishop to be accused.

Here is where the bishop truly shows us his character. In the face of the soldiers, he testifies on behalf of Valjean and gives him additional valuables that he had neglected to steal. The soldiers leave chagrined and Valjean leaves ashamed.

Who are we?

This is the power of individual action and personal interaction. The bishop was changed internally by his care for Valjean. The narrator of the book says this about M. Myriel:

“The sadness which reigned everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. Love each other; he declared this to be complete, desired nothing further, and that was the whole of his doctrine.”

In addition, Jean Valjean was also affected by this one-on-one exchange, and his heart changes as well. Both the giver and the receiver were elevated. I have found this to be absolutely true in my own life. When I help someone else, we both are better for it and we learn more about who we are and what we can become.

In the musical, Valjean sings the famous song “Who Am I?” to demonstrate his change of heart. I wonder who I am sometimes. Who am I, and who am I becoming? That question should be one that returns to us frequently. It is the purpose of our life. And how we treat our fellow life travelers is a measure of our answer.

 

What do you think? Leave a comment below and start a conversation.

“Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.” Thus will read the hypothetical epitaph on the hypothetical gravestone of the protagonist of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Billy Pilgrim meanders through Vonnegut’s novel, almost a third-person observer of his own life. Throughout the vignette-laden journey, Vonnegut reveals an interesting commentary on life from Billy’s perspective.

I can’t say that I loved this book, but it intrigued me and kept me engaged. Also, I can’t strongly endorse this book because of a fair amount of profanity (which I dislike). Obviously each reader has their own tolerance level for this and mine is low.

What I can say about it is that I found something worthwhile in reading it. Good writing has multiple layers of meaning, different for each reader depending on their own experiences. This book said something meaningful to me and I would say it is good writing.

Perspectives from Slaughterhouse Five

I found several themes in Slaughterhouse Five, although I will only comment on one of them in this post. Vonnegut discusses the reality of conflict versus the romanticization of it through the randomness of death and the injustice of war. He approaches the subject of class definitions in America and the treatment of the poor. His overarching theme, subtly but thoroughly addressed, was mainstream society’s general dismissal of ideas and information that does not fit with its preconceived notions of “reality.”

Although it was more deeply hidden, I found a message that is important and helpful to me. This message was about facing trials and difficulties. I have written before about enduring difficulties, and I believe this message is important because challenges are universal and common to us all.

Billy Pilgrim has the unique ability to “become unstuck in time,” which, in the context of Vonnegut’s story, means he can see all points of his life at once. Billy is not constrained by sequential chronological existence. His death, his birth, and everything in between is continually visible to him. He regularly drifts in and out of his own life experience.

Once Billy gains this ability to see everything at once, he approaches life with an attitude that is rare to humans. No matter what he faces in life, it’s “alright with Billy.” He knows that it will work out as it should in the end. For example, he knows that he can marry his wife Valencia, even though she’s not perfect. Billy sees that they will have a happy life together. He endures the difficulties of prison life in Nazi Germany. Billy knows that is not where he dies.

This concept gives Billy a singularly even temperament as life appears so uncomplicated for him.

For you and me, it’s not that simple.

The Power of Perspective

If you could see your entire life from beginning to end, like Billy, trials would become much easier. Each unique moment of difficulty could be aloofly sorted and understood. You would understand how that particular thing fits into your overall development as a person. Each experience might demonstrate to you how it came about, how it would resolve, and what it would mean to you long-term.

Unfortunately we don’t have Billy Pilgrim’s incredible hyper-chronological capabilities. As mere mortals with normal brains, we rely on something other than actual knowledge of how our lives will play out to get through tough times. Perhaps that is all we need, though.

What we do have is perspective. Perspective is sufficient to carry us through our life, if we take the right point of view. The best perspective is driven by faith. This faith isn’t necessarily faith in God, although it could be. It is for me. But it is also faith in ourselves, our own resiliency, and our own ability to endure. It might also be faith in our friends, or family, and their supportive role in our life. Whatever it is, it can help us keep our head up and focused on the future.

Henry David Thoreau wrote:

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

To me that means you can’t look at an obstacle as a problem instead of as a way to grow and become stronger. If you do then you will forever by frustrated and wonder why life is so hard. But if you can manage to look past the “problem” then you will understand that the struggle will ultimately make you a better person. If you can do that, you can face life with confidence.

Perspective at the End

At the beginning of this post I put an illustration from Slaughterhouse Five that Vonnegut drew. The quote from it says “Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.” Billy Pilgrim thought he should put this on his tombstone as his epitaph.

What I think that quote doesn’t mean is that life will never be ugly or painful. I don’t think it means that we will avoid the bumps and the bruises. There is no reason to believe that our life is the only one that will be free of trouble. That is just not how it is.

But what I do think is that if we can keep our perspective, if we can see the long road ahead instead of the roadblock, then things are beautiful. I think that’s what Vonnegut means in that “everything was beautiful.” He’s referencing life at the end of it, after you have been through the difficulties and seen it from a different perspective.

Our life and our progression from ‘who we were and are’ to ‘who we will one day be’ are an incredible journey, not an episodic parade of frustrations. In a previous post I discussed dealing with adversity.

And by the way, things do hurt. Lots of them hurt, and some of them hurt a lot. For the times when things are hard, it’s no simple task to just keep looking ahead either.

But when we get to the end of life and when we get to look back, we will see something different than we remember living through. I believe the struggle, the pain, and the heartache will be covered up by the beauty of who we have become.

 

Comment below with your own thoughts.

 

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Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury‘s famous story, is much deeper than I suspected. I knew it was about book burning and so I guess I expected it to be about ignorance, fear, and suppression. And it is about that. But the commentary I found regarding our ability and interest to connect with each other was eye opening.

If you have not read it, Fahrenheit 451 is a story about Guy Montag, a “fireman” of the future. In 2022, firemen do not fight fires since all houses are fireproofed. Instead, firemen play the vital role of preserving societal happiness by burning books. How does this work you ask? It eliminates thinking and any danger of becoming dissatisfied with the status quo.

Happiness is maintained through constant and invasive vapid entertainment via wall-to-wall TV screens. Even outside their homes, continual ads and promotions assault their ears. Montag is obliviously immersed in this world until he meets his neighbor. Clarisse is a young girl who seems completely uninterested in the prevailing trends of the day. As he converses with her, he discovers that she seems to know and experience things that he lacks.

Sand in a Sieve

Bradbury was a master storyteller, one of the greatest of the 20th century. I love the imagery he offers through Guy Montag’s memory of his childhood. In a flashback, Montag finds himself at a beach with his family. His cousin, an unpleasant sort, instructed Montag to take handfuls of hot sand and fill a sieve. If he did, he would get a dime.

The child version of Montag subsequently spends hours trying to fill the sieve. But “the faster he poured, the faster it sifted through with a hot whispering.” This vignette, indicative of a change occurring in Montag’s character, planted a seedling in my mind as well.

No matter how much we try to fill our days and our time with things, with entertainment, or with distractions, we will find that it leaves us just as empty as before. Just like the sieve and the sand, the insubstantial will not satisfy. There is no replacement for memories, for time, or for effort invested with a person that matters to us.

Distractions vs. Interactions

Montag’s wife Mildred represents the antithesis of his journey. She blissfully spends her days ensconced in her parlor surrounded by three full-wall TV screens (lamenting her lack of a fourth). The TV programs offer an escape from a reality she wouldn’t even recognize. Her virtual life is a continual buffet, which she neither remembers nor bothers to understand.

Mildred is hardly unique in their world as almost everyone Montag knows is similarly distracted. Suicides are frequent. Mildred occasionally takes entire bottles of sleeping tablets because she is so caught up in her entertainment that she can’t remember having eaten any. Through Clarisse, Montag realizes the plight of his family, and the world around him. Montag tries to save his family by conversing with Mildred away from the TV.

She is resistant and oblivious. She can’t understand why he would wish to talk when they could instead watch her “family” on the TV. The TV has all the interaction they could ever desire. The effort required to engage with another person was far greater than that of simply absorbing the distractions displayed on the screen in front of her.

Bradbury wrote the book in 1951, but I see firsthand what he wrote about then. At times, my children will be together in a room, each with a Kindle in front of their face not acknowledging anyone else’s presence. At extended family meals that we hold once a week, we (I’m included) will at times all be engaged with our iPhones while sitting in the same room.

There is so much more to life than the next game, the next episode, or the next movie. No one can find real lasting happiness in a screen or a game. There is a time and a place for such things in life of course. Bradbury even ends the book with this quote from Ecclesiastes “to everything there is a season.” But a happy life needs much more than a series of virtual moments can provide.

What Matters Most

When the end of my life arrives, if I get the chance to reflect, I am convinced that I will treasure the time I spent with my loved ones more than anything else. I doubt I will remember the plot to any movies I watched, or wonder what would have happened with the cliffhanger in that one TV episode. I don’t think I’ll wish I had leveled up just a little higher in a video game.

What I do think is that I’ll hope my children had memories of me being a loving father, my wife remembering a loving husband. I think I’ll wish to have spent time with friends in laughter and conversation. Most of all, I think I will be happy if I have spent my days doing things that filled me with joy, rather than just filled my time.

Classic authors, regardless of their epoch, seem to understand universal and lasting truths. Perhaps the issues humans face have just always been the same. Jane Eyre is one of my literary heroes, Charlotte Brontë a wonderful author and wise beyond her technological years. A quote I have loved since the moment I read it is this:

There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

For me, reading Fahrenheit 451 inspired me to look a little closer at where I spend my time. I hope to devote more of it to interactions rather than distractions.

 

 

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