What's vital?

A computer with an internet connection and two hours to kill can take you anywhere. On that particular day, we came to a page that would calculate how much unemployment payment we would receive if we weren’t students. I would get exactly € 2 less a months than what my student job and scholarship add up to. 

One friend of mine was convinced that one couldn’t live off the money received from the state. She was politically active and demanded a raise in that payment. I told her that I agreed with her that the reform of the employment market wasn’t the best possible solution. But I disagreed with her that one would starve to death because of it. After all, I wasn’t starving. I ate healthy food, was going out regularly and was able for my horse riding classes. The € 2 didn’t really make the difference. 

“But you couldn’t afford to go to the theatre and that’s vital,” she told me
“Theatre? No, food is vital and housing,” I told her, “and the state pays your rent and you can buy enough food for that money.”

Her answer was, “but you have to take your children to the theatre regularly, so that they can receive a classical education. And that’s vital for their future.” She wouldn't change her point of view that theatre and music lessons were as important for a child's education as food and a warm place to sleep, no matter how long we argued.

This conversation again made me realize that I was different. As a child, I had been to the theatre three times; once because a friend of by parents’ played in an amateur drama group, once with school and once because there was an opera performed in a football stadium. Nevertheless, I made it to the age of 24 and what’s even more a miracle is that I was able to enter into spheres where theatre visits are as important as food. And that, even though I only knew Romeo and Juliet from the movies.