It's a chicken vs. egg thing. Always has been. My self-doubt and self-flagellation has vacillated between two poles: 

(A) I'm a loser because I grew up without money and never learned how to win, though I might have learned under different circumstances, OR

(B) I have no money because I am—fundamentally and without repair—an inferior loser in a long line of inferior losers, and no circumstances could ever have changed this. 

I wish I could take back every second of time that I spent ensnared in the quicksand of this internal debate. Enough time to build a Rolls Royce by hand, no doubt, which I would then drive around to prove to myself and the world that I'm not a loser. 

The Hidden Injuries of Class, written by sociologists Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb and first published in 1972 (shortly before my father's incident), suggests that we internalize our class status to the point where is shapes our vision of the world and what we may achieve. Growing up without money, as most of the people in my family also seemed to do, I grew up feeling the problem was mostly circumstantial. 

If we Wingates had as much money as the Zinglers or the Mancinis, things would have been different. One kid, Bruce Kuipers, even told me once that "Us Kuipers have more money that all you Wingates will ever have." (A noble sentiment for a ten-year-old kid, don't you think? But it was New Jersey, where such things are expected.) If we had money, my dad would be different and therefore we all would be different. 

But as I got older and stepped out of the shadow of my father, I wondered if there was a reason for that lack of money. A fundamental loserdom that plagues my family, an inability to get our shit together and keep it that way. A tendency toward the self-sabotage of possible economic opportunities (I've always been a bridge-burner). Neil Young songs tend to summarize my life, so here's one (from Ragged Glory):

Why do I?

Why do I keep fuckin' up? 

For decades this mentality ruled me. A lack of confidence, a feeling I wasn't man enough to succeed in the world, a sense that I didn't deserve to anyway. Why not? Was it because of my bad blood? 

Or was it just chicken or egg? Born to lose vs. trained to lose? Nature vs. nurture? Or simply allowing myself to get stuck on that question, like a pig on a spit?