What I do know is that starting off a sentence like you’re already in the middle of a conversation is a good way to keep someone reading. I also know that the driving force in all of mankind’s contributions, however benevolent or bat-shit crazy as they may be, have been a pursuit for more. Whether we were trying to get from one village to the next, or trying to power our homes so that we could have wifi and thousand dollar vibrators, or merely a way to wipe without using our hands, we have always been restless.
This restlessness is the essence of capitalism my humble Americans; it is the spirit of the long-bastardized American Dream we all so desperately strive to grasp within our palms so that we too can complain of its emptiness. We’re told every day in every movie that money doesn’t buy happiness and in every commercial break is some shiny new thing to make your dick bigger, or to compensate for it so that people will like you.
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I see nothing wrong with exploring the depths of indulgence and I state no qualms with those who are happy to remain static on a plateau of comfort. Either way, what one schmuck spends his pay check on has little to do with what blows my hair back so I find myself mentally removed from the whole debate altogether.
However, I do find it interesting seeing how this endless pursuit for more affects those around me. In few other places in the world will you find such drastic poles on the spectrum of inequality like you do in New York City. It tickles me to watch as women who are somehow simultaneously shriveled and bloated walk down the street in nine thousand dollar jackets as they pass blind limbless veterans caked in their own bile. The image can be jarring at first but if there’s anything this city can do for you in a jiffy it’s jade you and rob you before you realize you’re standing pants-less in Times Square.
A conversation you might have heard or had includes someone listing their justifications for why they don’t give money to those who beg. They might suggest that they’re all liars and drug addicts or that they worked for the money so why would they give it away? My favorite response is that, since you can’t help them all-why help any? It’s a superficially clever retort if you don’t consider the underlying cynicism in denying one small act of altruism.
The above are all things I’ve said at one point or another. Not because I believed any of it or that I resented the homeless for any reason; I just get bored when I’m not stirring the pot. And what better to stir than the melting pot itself? Still, there is some strange undeniable feeling towards the homeless population. We avoid them as much as possible and use one crazy guy on the subway as our excuse for it but we have to confront the reality that people are starving every day no more than thirty feet from us while we slurp down our third or fourth five dollar lattes.
I had a dream once that all of the homeless people in the city committed suicide overnight. Everyone woke up the next morning to find their limp bodies layering the streets. How long would it take for anyone to notice that they weren’t just sleeping? How long would it take for the president to tweet some confusing statement about it? How long would people that never spared a dollar for them pretend like they actually cared?
I’m not saying everyone has to go out and donate every last possession, or even that anyone has to do anything (because I sure as hell can’t be bothered to get off my ass because of what one privileged college kid has to say), but what I think people should do is look within themselves and realize the hypocrisies they’re guilty of.
I certainly don’t know if the world would be a better place if we all embraced our flaws and wore them on our sleeves but it would certainly be a more honest place. And honesty is an oil reserve that can’t be tapped and monetized or sold and shipped overseas or created in basements by six year old Chinese kids. It has to be authentic.
This isn’t a political post or a picking of any side. I just like people who are aware of who they are and couldn’t care less about what other people have to say about it. We live in a world where half the population runs around with portable label makers and the other half runs around tearing them all down. It’d be a much more interesting place if people weren’t so scared of whatever motives drive them or what goals they dreamed of. We all have some equivalent of a foot fetish in our hearts and we’re all as equally aware of this fact. Yet still we walk around with our sphincters air-tight hoping to God that we don’t have a hair out of place.
Remember the fat kid who everyone loved because he embraced his weight with smile and humor or intelligence or whatever quality he used to say ‘listen up y’all, I’m more than a double XL’? Everybody has the capacity to live their entire lives with that attitude and there’s hardly anything beyond social constructs stopping us from doing so. So if you’re weird then be weird. You’re going to die and be remembered for a little bit so you might as well be remembered for being who you actually are. Otherwise that dash on your headstone between your birth and death will paint the picture of a human that could have been a person; words that could have been song.
