Whose unenviable position?

Wednesday, 18 March 1998

I recently became acutely aware, once again, of certain patterns in my life: my parents’ financial situation, my own financial history, my increasing paranoia about the harassment and possibly prosecution I am facing because of unpaid debt.*

A different idea nevertheless struck me like a bolt of lightning out of the clear blue sky: The last seven or eight years I have had some exceptional opportunities to understand things. This includes theology, history, politics, psychology and most recently, economics.

If I wanted to make a case about my unenviable personal experiences of financial difficulty, the legal troubles one faces because of debt, and the effects these things have on your self-esteem and confidence, I wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time arguing the case. But I can certainly also make an alternative case about the opportunities that I’ve had so far, and still have, to understand things.

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* By this date, I had learned from the bank that held my student loan that I had to start paying back my loan fairly rapidly if I wanted to avoid some very unpleasant consequences.

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