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Unfortunately, no one can be told what homelessness is. You have to feel it for yourself. It's like putting on heavy weights and thick glasses because you want
by jessor 16y ago
Unfortunately, no one can be told what homelessness is. You have to feel it for yourself.
It's like putting on heavy weights and thick glasses because you want to know how it is to be old.
The worst part is the psychological one, imho. He can go home. All bills paid, cosy warm room, roof over his head. But to know that you "failed in life", can't provide for yourself like so many others, have nowhere to go... I guess that's the real homelessness.
I recently experienced not getting paid for several months. It's quite interesting what this does to your head.
- chopsueyar 16y agoI would have shived him for his 4g iphone while he slept on his makeshift cardboard bed under the bridge. I'd make the shiv from a melted 3g iphone.
- jdc 16y agoPoverty is a state of mind.
- drunkpotato 16y agoPithy aphorisms are the state of a thoughtless mind.
- jdc 16y agoI thought it was a concise was of stating that constricting environmental factors have a way damaging one's self-esteem to the point of preventing him from clearly thinking to improve his circumstances.
- drunkpotato 16y agoThat is much better put. Your original formulation did not convey that connotation.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jdc 16y agoIf you've down-voted me, why not articulate why you disagree?
- dfh 16y ago"But still you'll never get it right, cos when you're laid in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, if you call your Dad he could stop it all." However, I guess it's not either or but a spectrum - although never completely homeless, I'm sure he felt more homeless than usual.
- buro9 16y ago> more homeless than usual. This is what going on vacation is, or camping out. Pulp got it spot on, a very fine choice of lyric there... it hit the mark and hit it hard. I've been homeless. It's an integral part of my identity that during my youth my life led me onto the streets for almost 2 years (inc 2 winters). When I put myself on the street I had options. It was an escape route from a family environment I wish on no-one. But I had options. I could've still called people up, I could've still gone to another family member somewhere else. Over time though, the options narrow. You've already lost possessions, wealth, means, but then you lose even the view that you could reach out to anyone. There really is a trip-wire beyond which hopelessness exists. If you think you're experiencing homelessness just by sleeping in a cheap sleeping bag and not carrying your debit card, think again. Get rid of the phone, burn your bridges, discard your possessions... dig a hole so cavernous that getting out is to climb a mountain, and don't leave yourself with an escape ladder or means to call for help. Only when your options are so few and so tenuous that they barely exist, only when you are so focused on your next meal and where you'll be warm and safe that night, only then with nothing at all to help you will you feel what the homeless feel. And as for Pulp, Common People captured something that exists in that desolate state. The fact that with everything gone, so too are the cares and caution. It is possible to be happy on the street, it is possible for it to be liberating to not have any options... in my view options were also constraints, things that prevent you from doing something else. You don't get the courage to attack new things if there's an easier option, without options attacking the hard things is all that is left.
- prewett 16y agoSo if you lost the idea that you could reach out to someone, what got you out of homelessness?