FORTUNATE PROFANITY

 

Last weekend I had the luxury of being able to drive my car to the Capital City to attend a garden expo.  A place where gardeners and purveyors of gardening supplies could come together to talk about gardening and participate in the always lucrative market of buying and selling of the latest gardening goods.  Many inspirational talks where given and I purchased some mushroom spawn, flower seed, and a welded metal sunshine wall hanging to hang on the side of my house, in an attempt to bring me joy on gloomy days. 

I left the conference feeling pretty good about myself and the coming spring, despite the freezing temperatures that were returning.  To celebrate the day, my wife and I left our comfortable hotel and ventured out for a night on the town in the shopping district down the road from the State Capitol.  We walked and talked and ate some delicious food and then while walking back to my car parked across from the Capitol to return to our hotel room, we came across a man walking on the sidewalk towards us who asked if we could “help the homeless?”. 

My spirit dropped when I first saw the man coming towards us, as I instinctively knew that he too was looking for a way to spend some of my money in the market exchanges that I could freely participate in.  For him, the path to participation relied on obtaining some money from someone like me, who might be willing to share a few extra dollars.  One thing that is for sure in our market driven economy that is dominated by the haves, is that if you venture out of the home gardens, you will encounter the have-nots, the homeless, or the formerly labeled hobos lurking in the shadows. 

When I encounter such unfortunate folks, I tend to rationalize my inability to really change the situation and justify not giving them any of my hard-earned change, by reminding myself of one of my litany of assumptions like: the man probably will only use the money to buy intoxicants in some form or another (mostly a projection of my own practices), or tell myself that if he really wanted help there are likely homeless shelters he could spend the night in (despite the fact that I would never want to stay in such a place), or there are social service agencies who could help him to get his life back in order (despite the fact that I avoid like the plague trying to work through insane government bureaucracies for any sort of help) or even that perhaps the life he chose as a homeless person is actually one of parties and freedom and adventure of life on the open road (which is easy for me to think when I can return to my comfortable and oversized heated garden home whenever I get tired of life on the open road, which in his case likely entails spending the night under a blanket on a sidewalk). 

With that rationalization under my belt, my response to his request for assistance was “sorry man, but have a good night”, a phrase I believed treated him with respect, but would not enable what I believed would result in a night of intoxication.  Although I was not sure that I heard his response correctly, I was a bit shocked when what I thought him say in response was “Fuck Off!”. 

This sparked my own response to my unfortunate wife with more of my rationalizations for how dare him tell me to “fuck off”.  I am not responsible for his situation, and if was to give all my spare cash away to the homeless people we encountered (I think he was probably the third or fourth such person we had encountered that night) I might be joining them.  I suggested to her that he might be better off going into the capital across the street when the politicians returned to work and tell them to “fuck off”, for I did not have the power to change this big picture problem of the global economic system that starves the poor to feed the rich (or something to that affect). 

As we drove back to our hotel room, I continued my rationalizations/rants and thought well maybe I should give him all my money, but knew that would not help the other homeless folks.  I thought maybe I should have offered him a ride to our hotel and bought him a room for the night, but figured he most likely would just spend the next night back on the street looking for handouts.  Could I offer him to come back and live with me in my oversized house where I could teach him to garden, but figured that he likely had mental illnesses and addictions that likely would prevent him from being able to learn from my enlightened offer. 

Eventually, with some incite from my wife, when I stopped trying to justify my response, I accepted that his succinct recommendation to “fuck off” was most appropriate in regard to my own thoughtless suggestion that he “have a good night” likely trying to sleep sober on a side walk while the temperatures dropped below freezing.  Being told to “fuck off” is never an easy suggestion to hear.  It triggers my anger response, it makes me dig in, or retreat, but more often than not, when I attempt to deny the realities of a “fucked up” economic system and try to justify my own benefits from living in this system, than I indeed deserve to be told to “fuck off”.   

This man was basically just doing the necessary job he had to do to survive in the economy of haves and have nots where the haves need reminders now and then that if they don’t do their jobs, they may have to join the ranks of the have nots.  And for those have-nots who receive the fortunate hand out now and then, they provide the other “feel good” reminder that money can indeed be a source of good in the world.   Acts of charity not only help those who receive the handout, they also help the haves to feel good when they share some of their change.   Which despite actually being “fucked up” is a reality that makes our world go round.    

Oh well, in the end, I am pretty sure that I am just doing more rationalizing about my good fortune of being where I am in the big scheme of things, and perhaps just need to be thankful that the man only suggested I “fuck off” instead of proceeding with what I probably deserved which was a good “fucking up”.  I am not sure if this profane message will change much in our” fucked up world”, but it has given me “food for thought” as I continue to enjoy the comforts of my garden home.  I hope it helps to continue to “wake me the fuck up” to the realities of a “fucked up” economic system and maybe one day getting to experience a system where everyone gets a chance to have enough, which is probably just hopeful thinking on my part.  And in the mean time think more about a better response for the next time a less fortunate person asks me for help.  Or perhaps a better plan would be to hope that the uncomfortable feeling I get, when confronted with the extreme inequality that is the foundation of our fucked up economy, does not go away.  Because I fear that if it does, I have succumbed to the insanity that also directs the whole fucked up system.