Youth poverty endured with irony and cigarettes in Spain
"I'm doing badly": that is how young Spaniards describe a poverty endured with cigarettes, irony and the hope of an inheritance. A portrait of dead-end precarity.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The poverty endured with irony and cigarettes
"I'm doing badly." The answer leaves no room for nuance. It is trinc by a string of cigarettes, the word "asceticism" and the certainty that the only plan for the future is inheriting an apartment. It is the daily conversation of those who have stopped looking for meaning in hard work.
Asceticism as a euphemism
When poverty is not a choice, asceticism stops being a virtue and becomes a disguise. Those who say they live like ascetics out of necessity say it with bitterness: it is not a lifestyle, it is a padlock. The joke about asceticism helps them keep it together, but it does not take away the smoke from the cigarettes lit one after another.
Inheritance as the only plan for the future
The contrast is cruel: the family has money, maybe an apartment; but the one who wants to work in IT cannot find a way to earn a living. The inheritance works as a safety net, but also as an anesthetic. Meanwhile, nostalgia sets in: no one thinks about experiences anymore, only about nothing falling apart and there being nothing to pay.
All that is left is resignation and dark humor. The cigarette goes out, and the question still hangs in the air: what to do when neither hard work nor irony is enough to climb out of the hole.
"I'm doing badly." The answer leaves no room for nuance. It is trinc by a string of cigarettes, the word "asceticism" and the certainty that the only plan for the future is inheriting an apartment. It is the daily conversation of those who have stopped looking for meaning in hard work.
Asceticism as a euphemism
When poverty is not a choice, asceticism stops being a virtue and becomes a disguise. Those who say they live like ascetics out of necessity say it with bitterness: it is not a lifestyle, it is a padlock. The joke about asceticism helps them keep it together, but it does not take away the smoke from the cigarettes lit one after another.
Inheritance as the only plan for the future
The contrast is cruel: the family has money, maybe an apartment; but the one who wants to work in IT cannot find a way to earn a living. The inheritance works as a safety net, but also as an anesthetic. Meanwhile, nostalgia sets in: no one thinks about experiences anymore, only about nothing falling apart and there being nothing to pay.
All that is left is resignation and dark humor. The cigarette goes out, and the question still hangs in the air: what to do when neither hard work nor irony is enough to climb out of the hole.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (61 replies).
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