Tag: change

Just before Christmas, I met a young man named Mitch. He was living on the streets of Sydney. My girlfriend and I almost walked by him as many people do. Choosing not to see someone because it’s somehow uncomfortable. Acknowledging the homeless also acknowledges that you are doing nothing to help them. The city was filled with Christmas shoppers and the homeless are an unwanted obstacle in the path of those fulfilling their consumer missions. Ironic, people so obsessed with securing gifts for others because society says this is the time to give, yet ignoring those in obvious need right before them.

Something about Mitch made my girlfriend stop. Perhaps it was how young he looked. I was making pace for the station, ready for the trip home when I noticed she was no longer walking next to me. I took a few steps back to join them. We introduced ourselves and my girlfriend asked Mitch if he would mind sharing why he was living on the street. At 21, Mitch is frank and clear-eyed, drug-free apart from a smoking habit. I don’t think it’s fair to share the details of his life without his permission, suffice it to say his story was one of misfortune, abandonment and ill-treatment. He expressed a great desire not to be living on the street. He shared his plans to get an apartment of his own. He freely admitted life had put him in situations that had led to bad choices, choices that made it more difficult now to find work and housing. Waiting for social housing was likely to be long and fruitless, other services only solve immediate problems, like a charity food voucher for $15 that might get him a meal once a month.

As we spoke, standing to one side of a busy Martin Place, a woman walked right between us, completely disregarding our conversation and Mitch’s presence, her shopping bags nearly knocking us over. We all had to take a step back and collectively laughed in disbelief. But part of me wondered if I was any better than the bustling intruder. I’ve occasionally bought meals for people living in the streets, or given money, but like many of us, I’ve also found it easier sometimes to walk by. I like to think I’m a little better as a human being because I see these people, even if I feel powerless to help.

Mitch said he didn’t want to say, ‘See you next time’, because next time we come to Martin Place he didn’t want to be living there. He wanted to take his social security and start paying rent. From there he hoped he could get work. We asked if there was anything we could do now to help him. He simply said a hot meal would be nice.

Mitch could have turned his life into a sob-story. For various reasons, he’d been rejected by his family and society, but he expressed a determination to make something of his life. He possessed a strong sense of self-determination. He took responsibility for the poor choices he’d made, despite many of them being made as a result of even poorer situations outside of his control.

We gave Mitch some money to get some food and he thanked us for taking the time to stop and have a conversation. He thanked us for listening and for seeing him. We all agreed we didn’t want to see him next time we might pass through Martin Place. Hopefully, because he will have his own place and maybe even a job. I’d hate for him to become a long-term member of the invisible homeless, ignored by thousands every day, too busy with our own lives to stop and help. But Mitch not being on the street doesn’t change the fact that others will be and as long as there are people on the street can we honestly say we live in a fair and compassionate society? More likely we are living in an age of misaligned priorities. We look beyond the obvious, we relegate problems like homelessness to our peripheral vision, choosing not to see because it has become an issue that is hard to change. The reality is though that change is just as much an act of will as keeping things the same.

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere

There are a ton of things going on in the world that bother me. They range from mildly inconvenient intrusions into my daily life to global demigods that threaten the end of our existence. The everyday intrusions I’m learning to deal with. What’s harder is the wave of moderate to high, national and global issues that inundate my mind at the speed of light. Literally, light carrying information from the multitude of screens I’ve allowed to infiltrate my existence directly into my thought stream. I’m angry with many things people do in my world. Rather than list them all, I can sum them up into two very simple actions. 1. People treating others without compassion. 2. People treating their world with contempt.

Within this constant download of outrage from social media and the 24/7 news cycle, there is one person in the world who is damaging us all by relentlessly surfing the waves of light we recklessly allow to flow into our view. I’m angry with the world for not only allowing it but for propagating it. I don’t even want to use his name because that’s what he wants. Instead, I’m going to refer to him as The Great Disruptor.

The Great Disruptor, via traditional and social media, is destroying our thought patterns. His every move, great or small, is reported in a way that no other world leader has been subject to and the constant appearance of stories related to him, the constant disruption is corrupting normal thought processes. It’s very important to respond appropriately to the outrageousness of his actions, but equally, it’s important to remove him from our stream of consciousness as a constant form of unpredictable energy. The Great Disruptor needs to be compartmentalised. His intrusion into our consciousness should not be at the expense of caring about other people or self-nurturing. The Great Disruptor aims to leverage our fear as he aims to validate his self-worth by the accumulation of wealth and power.

By disrupting our thoughts, by intruding into our conversations, by infiltrating our social media feeds as well as our mental processes he is taking our thoughts away from where they can do the most good. He is undermining our ability and our right to create a sense of self-security.

I like to think I have a strong will, but I’ll admit I’ve been mentally fractious since The Great Disruptor came to prominence. My peace of mind is slowly and surely being eroded. But now that I can see the negative influence of the constant news stream I can take steps to disrupt the Great Disruptor. For me, this is taking the form of reading less news and reconnecting with what’s happening in the immediate world around me. I’m turning off the internet and phone for a few hours every day and when they are back on engaging with them less.

We can and should have our moments of protest. They are vital. Our voices can and will change things. But along the way, it’s essential to also protect our thoughts. To allow ourselves the time and space to evaluate and to contemplate. We can grow meaning in our lives and hold true to what is of real value when we tune out the noise. And right now, The Great Disruptor is simply the noisiest child in the room. We can’t allow his cries for attention to be our undoing.

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere

It’s a thin line between calm and chaos. I want to take that line and make it thick. Really really think. I want to make it so thick that chaos is held clearly and firmly on its side of the line.

As I write this I’m aware that I’m talking about chaos. It’s not going to be contained by a line, real or imagined. By its nature chaos is going to do its best to destroy the very idea of a line. Even when we feel we may have created or discovered some degree of balance, chaos is lurking. It waits patiently for the façade of calm to crumble. Or is there a means to conquer it and remain calm in the face of inevitable chaos?

When I examine what I go through in my day I can see where the conflict between calm and chaos arises. On one side I have my plans, I have a clear idea of how I want to spend my time. There are deadlines to meet and goals to achieve. Chaos sits on the other side poised to thwart, metaphorical spanner in hand, ready to be thrown into my works. It’s so simple for chaos to hinder my plans and by so doing unravel my calm. My calm is almost entirely based on my desire to achieve what I have told myself I need to do. Chaos is no more than the frustration of my desires not being met. And there is the solution lying at the crux of the problem. I am giving chaos all the power. The true chaos is the idea I have created in my mind, that if I don’t tick off my list today then I have failed, that my idea of what needs to be achieved is somehow so vitally important that if frustrated it will lead to calamitous retribution. Aiding chaos is the idea that when anything new comes along I immediately think I have to deal with it and drop what I think is truly important.

The answer to what has seemed like an endless riddle to me might be to alter my perception of emerging priorities and rationally address them for what they are rather than seeing them as obstacles to my calm. Applying reason, I can either give immediate attention to the interruption or triage it. I also have to look closely at the things on my to do list. Who said I had to do all these things? Who said I had to make them all happen today? Who said I had to do them all at once? Turns out I did! Why exactly I don’t know, but it’s clear that the malicious force I personify as ‘Chaos’ is only a figment of my over active human mind, so too is my seemingly endless list of desires. Perhaps the best way to create calm is to remove the line between calm and chaos entirely, remove the very idea of an internal world of opposing forces. With that perhaps I can take away the power they hold in my mind and the affect they have upon my thoughts and actions.

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere
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