I have done a lot of research on being homeless and blogging today and I am not in a good mood as of the result. I can be very obsessive sometimes and spent way too much time today searching various websites and blogs on homelessness using many different sets of keywords with google and other search engines.
I had written in an earlier comment box that I didn't want to gain readership as my goal but I am human and that was not the truth. I want acceptance and an audience. I want people to think that what I write has meaning and is important. We all want a voice and when someone finds that voice unique or interesting and they tell you so it is a great comfort and a boost to your ego.
Many times I wanted to curse with the worst words imaginable but I restrained myself because I thought it would alienate visitors and they would no longer return to hear what I had to say. I also wanted to talk about topics that would make the majority of the average American public wince in discomfort and did not do so because I was more interested in being heard than being honest with myself and with what I write.
I also learned that there is a class system among the homeless and that they, being human, judge other homeless people almost as ruthlessly as those with homes do with the homeless. I now consider myself as the "high class" homeless in that I was fortunate enough to gain certain things before my illness digressed and I was left without a home. Do I have a choice in my current situation? Yes I do. The choice is simply A)being homeless and living in a tent, and B)Having a home and being a zombie under the supervision of my father due to the medications that would be forced upon me. What would you choose? Tough choice isn't it? I could be creative, alive, and homeless or I could be in a home and sleep away my days in a hazy stupor with a constant drool of spittle out of the corner of my mouth.
I have read many blogs lately on homelessness, many by the homeless, and they all define being homeless from their own perspective. Nothing pisses me off more than when another homeless person talks about or denigrates another homeless person as being not as homeless as they are or by talking about addiction or substance abusing homeless as if they are not on the same level or their lives are not as important.
I read one homeless blog in that the writer showed great discontent with panhandlers and beggars and yet they freely get handouts by mail or paypal from their readers and do not even credit the benefactors who had given in their blog. They go on to talk about if you give them(panhandlers, druggies, beggars) money or food then you are enabling them to carry about with their addictions. I sometimes wonder if these same homeless people stopped to think that the same services these major cities provide are enabling them to be homeless. They sleep in shelters and they eat in soup kitchens provided for free and with public assistance. Is the public enabling the homeless? That argument could as easily be made much as the same argument in that the handouts to panhandlers supports their addictions. If you didn't have these services then I am quite sure you would go to even greater lengths to find food and shelter.
I just get so tired of having everything I do or say being controlled or monitored by others. Peer pressure can be such a master to the common slave. I am so cynical lately and sometimes wonder if true freedom is a farce in our current society. If you say what you believe you are berated and forced to tow the party line. If your experience is different from the norm then it is either unacceptable or invalidated.
/end of rant
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