Maid and Suffering Through Poverty
The moral case for finding your way through poverty and overcoming the suffering it causes.
All of us suffer in some way.
There's a reason why the Buddhists have the idea that life is suffering. It's a recognition of the fact that there isn't really a way of avoiding suffering. You will suffer. Some people will suffer a lot and others will only suffer a little, but we all feel that whatever we're going through is painful. The only thing anyone can do is learn to endure it. While some people will be able to get through it, others will be brought down by it, or at least they will have a harder time finding a way out of suffering. This can be true regardless of the level of suffering you're going through.
One of the most difficult types of suffering you can find yourself in is poverty. Although some people are born into it, others simply end up in a bad situation they can't escape. No matter how much time and effort they put into it, you can't find your way out. There are people who can find their way out of it, but it's hard and requires a lot of difficult times as well as lucky breaks. There are whole systems which are set up in order to theoretically help people out of things like poverty. However, even this system can be extremely difficult to find your way out of.
It creates a cycle of suffering from which anyone would be broken if they manage to come out of it.
Maid is fundamentally about the type of suffering people go through when they find themselves in poverty. Alex, who is played brilliantly by Margaret Qualley, hasn't necessarily been born into poverty, at least not the kind of poverty most people think of. She had some level of stability in her life early on, but it fell apart. Partly because of the destructive habits of her parents but also because of some of the decisions she's made. Not that they felt like a bad decision at the time. But over time it became clear that the father of her child, Maddie, isn't someone who doesn't make choices that are going to help her or their daughter's.
So she has to find a way out of it. Both for herself and for her daughter, but it's far from a very easy path she's on. You'd be hard pressed to look at the journey she's gone through and see any of it as simple and easy. She suffers tremendously in large part because of the circumstances she finds herself in. And she finds ways around it, some of which will relieve her suffering and others which simply perpetuate more suffering. Understanding the process of poverty gives you a lot of insight into what it takes to find yourself through that suffering process.
Do yourself a favour and come to terms with the kind of suffering many people go through on a regular basis.
You can check out the full limited series on Netflix right now.