Debtor

Been thinking a lot about debt, given the economic necessity (as best I understand it) of going into quite a bit as a nation.

The reality of debt, like the Bible says, is that the borrower is slave to the lender. I think every debt related cost — interest rate, Vig, Collateral at risk, monthly payments, hits to your credit score — is an abstraction of the raw reality that all debt represents spiritual enslavement.

The greatest debt I’ve ever incurred is the spiritual debt of getting into and staying in a very bad relationship with a very dangerous person. There are always excellent short term reasons for continuing to take on more and more debt. And a lot of these types of debts are easier to keep borrowing against than to begin to pay back. It’s like when you take another semester of classes just so you have budget for your rent with student loans. Another day in a dangerous relationship is like a cash advance to get you through.

I’m at 2.5 years since the time I stopped taking on that debt. I stopped by separating from her, but I think I’m about halfway through an expected 5 year process of paying back the spiritual debts of spending all that time under abuse. 7 years to get in that deep and 5 to get out is not bad, and getting out that fast is only happening because I’ve been working so damn hard to get out.

The character of the debtor is marked by desperation and a sort of uncalibrated externalization of costs. Constant subtle damage to other people around you. Two days ago at 7-11 a homeless man scrounged together $1.00 and came in to buy a swisher cigar thing. I rang it up for $.99 plus tax. He had already set the dollar on the counter, rolled up, a wrinkled cylinder.

“It’s $1.07,” I said, and he looked at me and shrugged, not breaking his gaze.

“I’ve got $1.00,” he said.

I stared back for a second and gave him the cigar, which he walked off to smoke.

So in this case, he externalized $0.07 of debt to me. I’m responsible for the till. So I grab $0.07 out of the little pile of money behind the counter that we donate to a food pantry and make the till whole.

This guy was not remotely sympathetic or likable but that’s separate from the reality of, once you’ve let yourself become helpless, once you’ve let life kick you in the face for long enough, and once you’ve stopped providing any value to the people around you as a result, you become indebted to every single person you interact with. You recklessly inflict a little piece of your own debts on others around you, and if you’re like this homeless guy, you do it with an entitled attitude, or if you’re like me, you do it somewhat apologetically, but the nature of being a bankrupt person is essentially the same, and your impact on those around you is essentially the same.

It takes nothing but pure work to get out of this place. Double work really, because for however many years you’ve not been doing the basic necessary work of taking care of yourself. You have to take double care of your affairs for a very long time, and then, you get your debts repaid.

It’s astounding and overwhelming when you think about it, when you realize how deeply in debt you are in every way.

There are strategies you have to use to get your footing at one stage that you have to abandon entirely later. People you need to rely on who you have to cut off later. Each apartment you scrape your way into, then later outgrow as you’re climbing out of these kinds of debts, you’ll notice you have a lot in common with your neighbors, spiritually speaking. And when you pass them up it’s time to move on.

It really is mostly a spiritual failure, getting into debt, and spiritual work repaying it.