This picture is awesome ... (probably me, in 10 years)

Morbidly, between taking calls from Indians and Chinese who can barely speak English (a software engineering recruiter thing), I've been researching the homeless situation in Seattle. Maybe it's unlikely, but at this point I'm not sure what my next move is. I've come to understand, perhaps too late, the "musical chairs" nature of current economic existence - if you didn't find a "place to sit down" by 50 ... you probably won't.

I'm not interested in blaming society or others for this mess. It is very much a result of my own choices - good, bad, imperfect choices. I suppose killing myself would be more drastic than becoming a hobo, but really?

So one of the (now shutdown) tent cities I've been researching is called "The Jungle" - a homeless encampment in Sodo (a neighborhood of Seattle). Of course, most cities have a tent city or homeless encampment named "The Jungle" now. Seems like, as with most things, it is a spectrum ... and there will always be some fragment of social chaos worse than the rest. But, TBH, none of it sounds good, if you've gotten used to living in what's left of America's "middle class".

"The Jungle" was a ramshackle of tents and cardboard and garbage and human waste. This was place in the news for murder, rape, child prostitution. It's hard to imagine, if you've never seen it or lived it, what kinds of horrible things happen at the edge - where people are desperate, have very little, and have very few prospects for a future. I can see myself, in that place - for however long that might be.

Certainly - I was never really "middle class", I was just like most Americans - hallucinating the existence of a middle class where none was to be found. My parents wanted us to have that, I think some of my siblings have attained features of a "middle class", but in raw statistical terms the American middle class no longer exists.

I would say there are 3 basic classes in America now: a) those who don't worry about ever being poor, b) those who work and struggle to stay out of poverty, c) those who are drowning economically. The vast majority of America's labor force is in the category of "staying afloat", barely OR is drowning. Sure, some might think they're getting ahead, especially for those who own homes in the high-property value areas, but this is also kind of an illusion. I used to be the the second class - "those who struggle to stay afloat, having delusions of being middle class", now I'm merely on the borderline between floating and sinking.

So yeah - this picture is awesome ...

And yeah - I think this could be me, in a year or two (maybe sooner).

(and yeah - this could be you too, sooner than you think)

I guess "The Jungle" moves around - it's not in one place, it's everywhere as society falls apart.