Not sure you can imagine not being able to help each other.  Surely not if you never had help, or needed (i)anything(i).  There was no cash flow for a time.  And the volunteers wore themselves out, stress and malnutrition.  Mostly younger people with no foothold in terms of owning anything.  But also, in truth, career service people of all ages. 

     While America was in the 1990's things got restructured from what they had been for a long time.  And part of that restructuring prevented America from being able to save itself as the America we were.

  "Why are you crying?" The calloused hand rested on the table. 

  "It's just sad.  So sad." 

  "Well, you have to stop.  Stop crying." 

  The order worked until dinner was over and people broke into couples and quiet evening time.  It was foolish to cry.  Didn't help anything.  And it went against Victory.  It was showing weakness.  And revealing vulnerable.  Better to pretend strong and invulnerable.  (i)Pretend(i).  Pretend the non-food fills you up.  Pretend we're not in a surveillenc state.  Pretend that no matter the mess we've become, we're winning!  But who are we beating?  What, exactly, are we winning? 

  I could not, for the life of me, figure out the answers.  Sometimes that drove me to drink hard and fall down stupid.  But little by little I came to let go of a drive to win it all and came to embrace small victories as the precious stuff.  It was then that I found something to write about.