DoreenMichele, one of the few people I can call a true realist in this world. Barring the sexually-violent upbringing, our journeys have been very similar -- y

DoreenMichele, one of the few people I can call a true realist in this world. Barring the sexually-violent upbringing, our journeys have been very similar -- yet, the models ingrained into our psyches, different. I feel it's a matter of temperament, how we look at these things. Some are predisposed to be "glass half full" or "glass half empty," on an infinitesimally-parted scale. I believe the most influential of these is: "I'm right, and everyone else is wrong" vs. "I'm wrong, and everyone else is right." Or "I must learn how to make others see my way" vs. "I must become as others see me." It's difficult to par it down to an intuitive phrase, but it's essentially whether or not you give in to the "pressures" of the world, or continue to rebel against them. Whether or not you want to drink the Kool-Aid or sell your own. At the end of the day, everything around us -- all its meaning, and the way our neurophysiology has categorized it -- is an illusion; it's completely made up. You can believe whatever you wish to believe, so long as it's been registered before, in some way, shape, or form. The comments in this thread, and the prevailing zeitgeist that being homeless is some great tragedy is one prime example. I believe it's not. Suffering or the lack thereof, is pointless. At its core, it's simply a heuristic your genetics have supplied you with, to make better certain you will survive and reproduce. Like any other heuristic (hunger, thirst, perhaps even suffocation), it can be overriden with enough conviction; whether you should or should not, is another matter. I'm reminded of Pavlov's dogs. The more you resist against being broken, the harder it will be to bounce back when you do. So, in a Zen Buddhist sort of way, let go -- it's unimaginably freeing. For those of more stable temperaments, let the local fire department burn down your house for training, along with all of your belongings inside. I assure you, the results will be splendid; and all that baggage you've carried around -- material, and otherwise -- simply vanishes. Poof; gone! You have no past any more. There is nothing left to tie your sense of self down, and you're free to decide to be whatever you wish -- with the aforementioned caveat in mind. Surviving great suffering makes the less trivial in comparison; so too does facing the fear of death make all others disappear.