i'm guessing you are referring to the homeless aspect of my well being..
without sounding too much like an a hole: i was fine then too;
this was 8 years ago, i was traveling in france, i ran out of money but had a return flight, i landed in nyc with 40$ and i had a decision to make: do i call someone for some help or do i make it work?; i chose to make it work
when i was in india my understanding of poverty shifted dramatically, i even to this day say that the states are devoid of any poverty
the exploitation of individuals with less in the states seems hinged on flaws in our general system
i wanted to help both poverty of the world, and those disenchanted and alienated by the country that let me stay the longest without a visa.. my birthplace
but, i am really bad at helping other people,
what i am really good at is helping myself
institutionally or bureaucratically offering my services to provide aide often calls for me to perform tasks for goals that i already think are futile, or refuse to try new things due to established procedures and participant seniority and frustrate me to stop trying to help others,
and individual help is time and emotionally consuming, only helps a single individual ignoring others' suffering, and ultimately feels manipulative
but! if i become homeless, if i am without a place to live and without a cent to my name, i was confident i could crawl my way out of that caste, what i found was living in public spaces made sense under certain circumstances, the first time around i spent 4 months in new york's underbelly, then a year later i came back for another 4 because i knew how to play the game.. and i could play it really well
one thing i learned in my time living on the streets of many cities around the world, and meeting and living alongside many people doing the same was that homelessness is a choice
i know this is an unpopular sentiment.. the best of the worst rationalisations these days seems to be 'mental illness', people without a clue love to say 'homelessness is a mental illness issue', somehow people have convinced themselves that there is compassion in undermining other peoples' choices
now, to say 'it is a choice' is a pithy simplification of a vastly complex idea:
we need to determine what are bad choices both for individuals and for our collective happiness and comfort,
and how to interact with people making those bad choices
we need to determine why the choice is being made,
honestly a lot of the people i got to know or chose to avoid were just doing what they wanted to be doing and either our dominant society rejected them or they saw it as abhorrent and opted out of it: i need to do your work for you for a pittance of your benefiting off of said work in order to pay a monthly fee for a stronger box with a lock on it so i can collect things in it free of constant fear of it being taken from me when my guard is down? i think i'll just accept the consequences of living without employment then, those seem more manageable to me;
but i love being able to have a shower, it is really difficult to enjoy the rain when you are without a shower and dry clothes to go home to and i love to enjoy the rain
so that became my baseline: getting people jobs they already knew they were uninterested in having is ridiculous, but creating a culture where anyone can take a warm shower and get warm clothes when they are needed, now that is something.. so i dedicate my free time to dreaming up my favourite way to achieve this
o, and food, everyone needs food
food should be free..
"When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?"(i)
food will be free in the future
justifier|11 years ago
without sounding too much like an a hole: i was fine then too;
this was 8 years ago, i was traveling in france, i ran out of money but had a return flight, i landed in nyc with 40$ and i had a decision to make: do i call someone for some help or do i make it work?; i chose to make it work
when i was in india my understanding of poverty shifted dramatically, i even to this day say that the states are devoid of any poverty
the exploitation of individuals with less in the states seems hinged on flaws in our general system
i wanted to help both poverty of the world, and those disenchanted and alienated by the country that let me stay the longest without a visa.. my birthplace
but, i am really bad at helping other people,
what i am really good at is helping myself
institutionally or bureaucratically offering my services to provide aide often calls for me to perform tasks for goals that i already think are futile, or refuse to try new things due to established procedures and participant seniority and frustrate me to stop trying to help others, and individual help is time and emotionally consuming, only helps a single individual ignoring others' suffering, and ultimately feels manipulative
but! if i become homeless, if i am without a place to live and without a cent to my name, i was confident i could crawl my way out of that caste, what i found was living in public spaces made sense under certain circumstances, the first time around i spent 4 months in new york's underbelly, then a year later i came back for another 4 because i knew how to play the game.. and i could play it really well
one thing i learned in my time living on the streets of many cities around the world, and meeting and living alongside many people doing the same was that homelessness is a choice
i know this is an unpopular sentiment.. the best of the worst rationalisations these days seems to be 'mental illness', people without a clue love to say 'homelessness is a mental illness issue', somehow people have convinced themselves that there is compassion in undermining other peoples' choices
now, to say 'it is a choice' is a pithy simplification of a vastly complex idea: we need to determine what are bad choices both for individuals and for our collective happiness and comfort, and how to interact with people making those bad choices
we need to determine why the choice is being made, honestly a lot of the people i got to know or chose to avoid were just doing what they wanted to be doing and either our dominant society rejected them or they saw it as abhorrent and opted out of it: i need to do your work for you for a pittance of your benefiting off of said work in order to pay a monthly fee for a stronger box with a lock on it so i can collect things in it free of constant fear of it being taken from me when my guard is down? i think i'll just accept the consequences of living without employment then, those seem more manageable to me;
but i love being able to have a shower, it is really difficult to enjoy the rain when you are without a shower and dry clothes to go home to and i love to enjoy the rain
so that became my baseline: getting people jobs they already knew they were uninterested in having is ridiculous, but creating a culture where anyone can take a warm shower and get warm clothes when they are needed, now that is something.. so i dedicate my free time to dreaming up my favourite way to achieve this
o, and food, everyone needs food food should be free.. "When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?"(i) food will be free in the future
(i) http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/america