When I was a teenage hippie, the romance of self-righteous poverty appealed to me. A few years teaching highschool on an Indian reservation taught me that there’s nothing romantic about poverty.
Someone wrote that poverty is romantic in your twenties, dull in your thirties, and tragic in your forties. When I was in my thirties I became a homeowner and realized that my little piece of the pie was going to be held up for social welfare schemes which benefitted no one but politicians. Wow, big attitude adjustment.
If I ever thought poverty was romantic, my 2 years on the rez killed that for me too.