Cynics, Invisibility, and Homelessness

Curry thoughts

Last night I was walking down the street to pick up an order of curry, when I was startled by the gruff voice of a homeless woman yelling from across the street. I almost dismissed it as a drug-fueled rant and picked up my pace like usual, but when I processed what she was actually saying I slowed down. I can’t recall her exact phrasing, but it is still pretty fresh in my mind and was basically this:

“Hey! I have something to tell you all! You were all just born into this world, and you are all perfect! There’s nothing to worry about cuz you were just born into this world and God loves you.”

She said some other stuff afterward but I couldn’t really distinguish it and I don’t remember. Those few sentences hit me hard though and I was tearing up a little bit; mostly because this woman with literally nothing had said something to me that actually improved my day — she gave me something.

The Cynics

As I continued down the street with the yelling homeless woman’s voice slowly fading behind me, I began to think about a couple months back when I had gone on a bender reading about the ancient Greeks. I thought of the Cynics and the Stoics, and the other ascetics further east. Most of them were homeless. Not like today where homelessness is usually out of destitution and oppression and what-have-you; with these guys it was deliberate — a way to find truth and meaning and happiness beyond the conventions and luxuries of society. Cynics like Diogenese would sleep on the streets of cities and live deliberately like dogs in order to challenge the ways of “civilized folk;” trying to teach them to see past their greedy and narrow views*.

Basically these guys would go around making fun of people like Plato and Alexander the Great and everyone that they found to be leading silly, meaningless lives, collecting trinkets that they would only die with — all the while ignoring the greater truths of life. The Cynics would destroy money, fornicate in public, roll in the mud — basically they didn’t give a damn and were total badasses*.

Today

Anyway, the words of the homeless lady I came across reminded of them, but when I thought about it, I realized that nobody would ever listen to her. Even if she were speaking the most incredibly profound thing anyone had ever heard, nobody would know, because homeless people are invisible. Their existence is embarrassing to the homed, disgraceful, and arise feelings of guilt in us. When we pass a homeless person we do our best to pretend we haven’t, ignoring the fact that a real person is living there in that body, in simultaneity with us and ours.

I guess my point is just that homeless people are probably cooler than meets the eye, and we should stop ignoring them and should actually give a damn. Also that we should take a page out of the Cynic’s book and stop giving a damn about most of the other stuff that we give a damn about now.

You can read more like this in my blog Thought Raisins.