Think back to the so-called good old days, poverty was not measured by money but by our knowledge and level of education.
There was a time when poverty was not measured by the weight of your wallet but by the depth of your understanding. We were all immigrants to knowledge, to language, to life itself. What we lacked in formal education, we made up for in shared stories, resilience, and a hunger to learn. There was no shame in not knowing. We shared a quiet urgency to grow. We were poor together, but rich in connection, in community, in curiosity.
Today, the world wears a different face. Wealth has become the new language of wisdom. Degrees are framed on walls like medals, and the size of your house is mistaken for the size of your mind. Education is too often confused with elitism, and those without material means are dismissed as lacking value. But when we peel back the layers of privilege and step into the skin of these so-called successes, we often find something hollow—an emotional emptiness where purpose used to live.
We have traded shared growth for individual gain, and in doing so, we've forgotten that true wealth is not what fills our bank accounts, but what fills our hearts and minds. In the end, knowledge without empathy is noise, and education without meaning is just another form of poverty.
Without them, we were all equally poor and immigrants. Today, education and knowledge are identified by wealth until we get into the skin of matters, then we realise the emotional emptiness.
The meaning of poverty has shifted—from something shared and external, like a lack of formal knowledge or access, to something internalized and often masked by wealth.
Now, wealth creates an illusion of success or wisdom, but many are poor and emotionally unfulfilled.
Once wisdom sets in while age begins to check out, we may not see letters up close, but we can spot idiots far away.