Is Poverty a Choice?

"The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it's only money... they don't know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination." Poverty is a state of being, a mindset. Its is where you unconsciously say to yourself, I am poor, I am without, I am less, because I have less. This is no one's fault, it is only the situation that we as a money-oriented society have put ourselves in. Money equals opportunity which equals freedom and happiness. Without money, you find yourself in the cycle we call poverty. The lack of opportunities, less money, less freedom and consequently, unhappiness.  So as the great Alan Watts says, we need some imagination, we need to change the way we think about life and the role of money in life and we will change poverty. The impoverished state would change into a state of losing unnecessary attachments, a buddist mindset of sorts. Life is what you make of it some say. 

Malcolm X

The defining quality  that i noticed throughout the first 12 chapters is awareness. Malcom is constantly aware of his situation, although it may not always change the way he acts, such as when he is constantly hopped on on cocaine in harlem, running hustles and selling reefers. I noticed his awareness more in the first few chapteres. He was always nodding along with all the crazy things that came out of his peers, and teacher's mouths. As he did this he would formulate his own conclusions about those around him based on their reactions. This gives him a few other qualities that i believe made him such an effective person in the later years of his life. He learns patience with the iggnorant and lets them do the talking, lets them make mistakes, and uses that lack of knowledge and changes it into something he can use. He becomes tolerant as well, through his patience with people. These first 12 chapters have really made me think about racism. Racism comes from all sides and has been around for a long time. Once we all stop pointing fingers and learn to love eachother as simply fellow human beings things will change dramatically. Until then, the racist mindset will live on and keep planting its parasitical roots.