The Proximity Of Poverty And Prosperity

A quick meditation for you on the proximity of poverty and prosperity:

Had a true METROPOLIS moment today:

Next week, I’m working as an executive assistant for – let’s just say – one of those gazillionaires that only live in New York City and Palm Beach (excluding the various houses in Nantucket, etc.).

The gazillionaire will not be in the office for several more months (after all, the boats are still in winter storage, and DC doesn’t have any galas coming up), so the temp agency and the woman training me today were apologizing that:

1) I will be BLISSFULLY ALONE
2) On an upper floor
3) Of a fancy landmark building
4) With probably almost nothing to do but say: “Thank you” to the mailman once a day, while I
5) Drink the Diet Coke and eat the Greek yogurt they’re buying for me
…AND…
6) There’s wifi. Free wifi.

As I left the large, empty suite, after dutifully writing down the names of the woman who tends the indoor plants and will be in Thursday, and the woman who cleans the kitchen and will be in at 2 PM every day, and storing the “emergency contact lists” which includes a web of personal assistants and the names of the housekeepers of EACH OF MR. X’S HOMES (a mere five), as well as the name of the personal chauffeur who “always makes time for Mr. X when he is in town,” and what CATERING TO ORDER ON THE CHARTERED PLANE…you know, the one with MORE LEG ROOM THAT THEY PREFER…

I then took the elevator down to the basement level where there’s a well-known concourse with multiple shops and the unwashed masses of blue collar workers and multilingual tourists searching anywhere for an electical outlet, and the rushing denizens of this singular building a mere two city blocks wide, with a private entrance to the subway if you know how to navigate yourself underground…

…and all of humanity rushing to and fro, or stopping and looking around in confusion while others jostled past them to stand in a motionless line…

…and thinking of my own week-long MetroCard that I purchased this morning on the hope that I’ll be paid next week, despite having just seen a receipt that this guy dropped for an amount of money I have not yet made cumulatively in my lifetime…

…and all I can think is how very, very, very strange humanity is. And how closely privilege lives with poverty. And how insurmountable a distance it all remains. Even for an elevator.

Photo courtesy of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

The Proximity of Poverty and Prosperity