You’re a 53 year old woman. You are illiterate, for the most part. You did not finish high-school; in fact, you barely got started. Your father died when you were a child, and your mother was abusive and indifferent. You took up smoking in your teens. You worked a few jobs here and there to support yourself. Back then, it didn’t matter so much if you couldn’t read… If you could cook, or sweep, or paint or whatever, you could find some work. You fell in love before you were twenty. He got you pregnant. He left. You found someone else. It happened again. Before long, you realized that you were in way over your head. You chose to put your kids up for adoption in the hopes of providing them a better life. They resent you for it, even now.

For a time, you found happiness. You married again, and again had a child, a boy. This time with someone much better. He had a steady job and a good head on his shoulders. But it didn’t last. You got split custody. The two of you juggled the child back and forth over the years. He turned out alright… Got a decent job, but it is far away and you don’t see him as often as you’d like. You got back with the first man you loved. This time it was better. You were married for over a decade, but it went bad towards the end. Again, you left. For a year, you lived in a woman’s shelter and learned more about the abuse that you had suffered. Now you live in a government provided apartment in a terrible neighborhood. You’re attending a school for adults, for the second time in your life, to try to get your diploma. You tried looking for work, but ‘hopeless’ didn’t quite cut it. Just look at the economy. People with degrees in physics and biology are working the jobs you were aiming for. How can you compete?

You receive about $600 a month. Your apartment and bills cost about $450. You don’t have TV or internet; can’t afford it. You got a cellphone a little while after walking out. So far it’s cost you nearly a thousand dollars because you do not understand the terms of your contract. You put it on your credit card.

This is your life. You live in relative solitude. Most of your ‘friends’ were actually friends with your late boyfriend. Most of your family lives far away, or wants nothing to do with you. Your best friend died of cancer recently. You were with her right until the end. It weighs heavily on your mind.

Through it all, you write poetry. One of your poems was published online, another in a book. Writing poetry and seeing people enjoy your cooking are a couple of your favorite things. You don’t have the will nor opportunity to do either very often. But you keep on keeping on.

What else can you do?

How does this individual become a self sufficient productive member of society? What is within her power that can help her out of this pit? Is it her fault? Sure. She made bad choice after bad choice. Is it the decision of society that for that reason this individual, of whom there are literally millions, aught to be forgotten? She would like nothing more than to be placed into a situation where she could earn her keep using the skills she does posses, but no such situation exists for her. She is left to provide for herself in the absence of gainful employment. She relies on the government for almost everything. If not the government, then what few friends and family she has. Society has turned their backs on her. They’ve placed her in a cell to which there is no exit. It is not enough to simply provide four walls, bread and water. Of course she is older, frail, and emotionally vulnerable. She will not protest her situation. This is more than she could ever provide for herself. She is defeated.

But others who find themselves in a similar situation, again of whom there are millions, will not give up so easily. They have strength. They are clever, and capable of seeing the truth of their situation. Society has turned it’s back on these people; they are warehoused and forgotten about. It is an inevitability that they will react in kind. We must provide a genuine avenue to betterment for people like this. And even if commercialization of their skills is not possible, we must allow them to utilize them. Anyone who is retired will know that idleness is hell. Well a lack of resource access breeds idleness. We mustn’t resign those most in need of our help to a veritable hell. It is wrong. And it will have consequences.