hustle as a living


It is hard enough living check to check - at least you can plan on and around a paycheck. But to awake with the precise necessity to find, execute and profit from a job. . . it brings new meaning to this job is killing me. Still, people live like this. Whether sun or rain. Whether willing or unwilling customers, bosses. People make hustle an occupation and spend themselves in the labors of the field

I've seen it. I've done it. We feel it and hear it. Walk away from it. Weep in it. . .We hate it. We trust it. We live and die and get locked up by it. . . It is our miracle manifest and our embarrassment exposed

Hustle is one of the phenomena that transcend. . .

. . . from the guitar plucking man in a weathered suit jacket, his voice strained but entertaining, singing at corners on campus - $1,500/mo at least. . .the family dollar cart pulling, garbage bag clad dread, collecting bottles to build dollars from cents - one hundred dollars in a day or twos time. . .the seller of desktop burnt CDs and basement dyed tees. . .date for dinner. . .coupons. . .check books balanced to let odd dollars compile. . .dollar tree

. . . from bulk bought incense and oils. . .marijuana packaged small and, Him willing, smoked tall. . .the yearly cam-recording of Juneteenth. . .still shots of night life sold for $5 or $10 bills. . .the lottery. . .casinos. . .platonic connections to off-the-books house cleaning gigs. . . ‘round the way hair braiders, baby sitters. . .church-sponsored chicken dinners. . .fish fries. . .and sunday morning fishing. . . to skimming and outright criminal profiteering

Yes. We, people, all people, know how to get money. Because we love to spend it. Because we have to spend it. Our society is built on an old, gender biased structure with male head of household, woman at home in Sibleys or Sears or General Store fabric-sewed clothes, perfect course dinners and parental controlled snacks. . .No depression. . . No obesity. . . No right out stupidity-fueled competition

Sad thing is many homes have two partners and only one with a steady - though never 100% reliable - paycheck. Sad thing is if that paycheck is 100% reliable it equates to the non flexibility and minus generosity of the job. Sad thing is the other partner often has no choice other than to hustle because society has put in place incessant andasininee policies and procedures - spoken, inked and otherwise practiced that loop hole them into no opportunity for growth or betterment within the system

And, so we exist - either alone or with partner on virtually one income, while we - alone or with partner struggle with the demands of long days. . .physical and mental and emotional fatigue. . . always pushing forward in a society that is increasingly more expensive to live in. . .in a society that increasingly challenges any sense of union and civility we grip to trying to push forward

Hustling for a living is a fortifier. True. Hustling as a living is a betraying blade. True.

Hustle as a living is necessary, and almost always part of the hustle is we live on a budget of sacrifice, binge discipline and prayer. . .