Thanks for this. All I said is we don’t live in a deep hole of despair. Sure parts are bad, but I don’t know of anyone who lives with absolutely no bad in their life.
Lots of wealthy people moan and whine all day long. It is arguably how one becomes wealthy. Lots of poor people are happy. It is arguably why they are poor. Life can hand you a good hand of cards or a bad one. Sure. How much that gets to you is up to you.
I talk with a dying man one time who worked in a hospital for dying people. He asked for me because he knew dying people had the best conversations with those they didn't know intimately. The one thing that stuck with me was the contrast between 2 types of people, one kind screams and cries for 2 weeks straight, day and night "I'M GOING TO DIE!!" the other kind talks about all of the great things they experienced in their lives. He remembered one specifically who smiled and said: "I had a great life" then turned over in his bed and was gone.
Before you can live in a deep hole of despair you first have to dig it yourself.
The real percentage is far smaller. I suspect the parent has only encountered homeless beggars, in the context of being begged at. If that’s all you knew I could see how you might think they hate it.
In reality homeless place a higher value on personal freedom than most, and the absolute happiest people I’ve ever met were all homeless with no intention of being otherwise. For these, possessions often come from donations they receive from people they meet and develop real connections with.
"I suspect the parent has only encountered homeless beggars, in the context of being begged at."
Oh no. The complete opposite. I lived in SF 15 years, worked and talked to the homeless dozens of times. 99% [not mentally handicapped] are addicted to fentanyl, destroyed all their relationships, and are slowly dying. Trying to justify it as "freedom" is a bizarre comment. They tend to have ZERO freedom, trying to score another fix, in an endless loop - they have NO ability to do anything else. People in prison have more freedom IMHO. They need detox now.
SF is an exception. They’ve been grossly mismanaged for years. I wouldn’t touch it with a 10’ pole. The homeless there get government cash to buy drugs and government hotel rooms to use them in.
It’s expressly designed to select for the lowest common denominator, and it shouldn’t surprise anything that what they’ve received is exactly that.
SF is no exception, and the "Berkeley girls are sluts" implication makes me wonder how homeless this poster is; reads like something a 60-year old former programmer with a grudge would say.
My wife works in the homeless shelter / battered woman shelter sphere, and depression, drug use, and misery is widespread. Many of her clients, after getting sober, are deeply isolated, and many have few skills, few friends, and terrible self-esteem. Many straight-up don't care if they die, and the only thing motivating them on the day-to-day is avoiding withdrawal.
This is nowhere near SF, but it's not like homelessness is magically different because you're in California.
> My wife works in the … battered woman shelter sphere
Ah. Perhaps the following reformulation of this thread will help you to understand how clouded with prejudice your viewpoint is:
> All women live a life of getting battered.
> This isn’t true. I’m a woman, and I don’t get battered.
> You are incorrect. I know someone who knows a lot of women at a battered women shelter, and they all get battered. Therefore, the vast majority of real women must certainly get battered. Accordingly, I’m left to wonder how much of a true woman you really are.
The fact that you accompany this absurd line of reasoning with a tidbit in which you take a statement I made praising and reminiscing upon a group of people who categorically treated me with upmost kindness immediately following an all-time low^, then replace my words with derogatory sexualized ones, then turn around and claim I hold a grudge? Icing on the cake. Got any mirrors in that big fancy home of yours?
Here’s the root of the matter: the only thing that just be true for someone to be “homeless” is that they don’t have a home. The fact that you’ve had such a narrow experience with the homeless that you think they must also be impoverished drug addicts does not mean that anyone who doesn’t have a home but isn’t an impoverished drug addict isn’t homeless, but rather that you speak overconfidently of things you know nothing.
If you met me on the street you’d see a happy guy walking on the street with his dog, taking the time stop and talk with anyone who cared to chat. You would hear no mention of my homelessness, and you’d walk away remaining stuck in your perverted worldview in which homelessness implies every bad thing you can imagine.
^ A week of torrential down pour preventing me from a wink of sleep and soaking everything I own, followed by a government agent invading my space and robbing me of all my most prized possessions, including the single pair of shoes I owned.
I'd bet 99.99% of homeless people would extremely prefer not to be.