hi, how are you?
January 7, 20061:35am.
While smoking a bedtime cigarette out my living room window just now, I saw one of the most utterly depressing things in recent times. There's this man, homeless, who wanders up-and-down the streets of the west side (in particular the armory) and pulls around a large shopping cart tied around his waste overflowing with cans, bottles, useful garbage etc. It's not as if I've never seen him before, but tonight as I was sitting in my toasty warm apartment, surrounded by all my luxuries and unnecessary amenities, I watched as he lugged his cart from trash pile to trash pile collecting items that we ("upper society") have discarded. I know the thought is trite, but I did not feel pity for this man. As I watched this man, who wore plastic gloves and had one of those light hats, I became overwhelmed with guilt, and yet more powerfully, I was overcome with respect. While digging in one trash can ever so neatly, replacing trash he pulled out right back in the can, a car drove up and parked. The man or woman in the car, I couldn't tell, did not get out because the cart man began pulling nearer. Perhaps it was fear, perhaps not. Either way the cart man continued with his business without shame, without hesitation until he was satisfied with his findings and pulled away. I found it quiet amazing and also just so very sad. I almost wanted to go downstairs and talk to him, tell him to keep his head up, console him in some way, something. But I think in a way fear had gripped me just as it did the person in the car. Why? Is this person unlike any other person? Does not this man have feelings? A voice? A desire to be seen and heard and liked as something more than just a spectacle to all who don't understand? But that's just it. We can't understand and it cripples us. As a society. As a culture. As simple breathing human beings. I hate that. I wish I had done something. Even if it were simply those four little words that have become so commonplace and meaningless in this rhetorical society, but actually really mean it; "hi, how are you?" Is it possible that those words would have meant something special to him? Maybe they would have made him feel good. Then again, maybe they'd just make me feel good - and right now I'm not sure which one makes me feel more like a hypocrite.
posted by H. Hopkins @ 9:53 AM
Comments: 0
