In T-14 hours, I will be getting on a 30-hour plane ride. As I put aside clothes to wear for the plane ride this morning, I thought Damn, this plane ride is gonna be hell. My legs are going to be so crammed and my digestive system will go haywire and my back is gonna die. That thought led to me thinking about the notion of the classes on planes (ie, first-class, business-class, economy-class). What a world we live in.

Our modern world (and capitalist world) complicated something as simple as equality. Equality, in essence, is just treating every person equally, fairly, justly. There are so many faceted layers to equality, so let’s focus on money for now.

The idea of equality is so intertwined with money to the point where it feels sickening. Why does one person who can afford to or want to spend money on a business-class ticket get to spread their legs out, get better food, and recline as far as they can to sleep better, while another person, who either cannot afford the ticket or simply does not want to spend money on that ticket, need to force themselves to fit their legs in a 2 in. radius, receive shit food, and can’t even recline fully without being in the face of the passenger behind them?

I know it’s a stretch to wish for all people of all professions to be compensated fairly. Thus, my problem is more-so with the amenities that come with being rich. It’s kinda paradoxical no? When you’re rich, you can suddenly afford a whole bunch of things (ie, a first-class plane ticket) to maintain that richness. But when you’re poor, and potentially in a more dire state, your options are severely limited. Thus, the rich are continuously valued and made richer while the poor are devalued and made poorer. We’re literally going farther away from reaching equality.