My pal Joey over at Philebrity just found an interesting document at the University of the Poor, a high-minded lot geared up to eradicating poverty in America. In it, they provide some details about artists and their relationship to money. Not surprisingly, there’s some quantifiable truth to the old adage about “starving artists“.

I’m always amused by such pondering. Or maybe amused isn’t the right word. Conflicted is more like it.

On the one hand, I fit emphatically into this set. I’m an artist. I’ve held probably close to twenty five different jobs since college. I don’t have health insurance. I don’t own a home, a late model automobile or a 401k portfolio.

Yet on the other hand, I’m not poor. I’ve traveled all over the globe — Asia, Central America, Alaska, Europe — I’m virtually debt free — I have a college education from a top school — I have four days off a week — I move to awesome places on a whim — I have tons of good friends… How is this poor? Because I don’t own anything?

And I’m not alone. Poverty Jet Set, man. It’s a real thing. I keep saying that it’s something like the 21st Century version of The Sun Also Rises. It may sound bizarre to some people, but if you believe the equation that time = money, we would much rather have the time. We hate giving up our time in exchange for money. Each minute that passes is one minute less to live.

While the statisticians of the world love to quantify our so-called plight, ultimately, it ain’t such a bad deal. For now, I make the whole complexities-of-modern-life thing simple by choosing to stay cash poor, by choosing to live with less, on less so that I can have awesome adventures and suck the marrow out of life. Carpe diem.

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