Poverty is marked by limits. Perhaps you have known poverty in some form. It is experienced as stress and also resourcefulness and creativity. It feels like a lack of power and also an inability to give up. Like being stuck, buried, scratching, grabbing, treading water. It is endless work with no reward, like you cannot get ahead. A limit of property and money is considered financial poverty but is not always experienced as being poor. What about poverty of the mind? Poverty of the body?
Poverty of the mind is a limit on your thoughts. Limited options, limited confidence, limited joy, limited perspective. You feel as if you do not own your identity, your self. It shows as addiction, depression, fear, anger, wondering, worry, hopelessness, blaming, shaming, unwilling to change, believing you cannot change, tolerating your abilities instead of embracing opportunities to use your uniqueness. It is lonely, unloved and uncaring. It is believing you cannot be different, that the world is against you, or that your thoughts and soul are not with you.
Poverty of the body is a limit on your health. It is a disconnect between mind and body. Malnourishment, misunderstanding signs and symptoms. It shows as illness, sickness, weakness, fatigue, soreness, pain, injuries, excess weight, immobility, absesses, inability to digest or embrace goodness. It feels as if you do not own your body or control it, that you are trapped within and burdened by the fixed structure. The body can be disguised to ignore its limits but not forever.
Who determines the limits of poverty? Are animals poor? They are resourceful, yet they have no guarentee their efforts will bring success. Do they feel hopeless or beleive life is meant to be better? Do they compare their abilities with other animals? Are plants poor? Do they experience stress with their limited mobility and dependency on external factors? Do they wish life to be different? Victims live in poverty. If you change your perspective, you change your conditions for living.