Defining one's self in society

[Oleg Bach]

Right...in the Old West, they were glamorized as "cowboys" or..... "desperados".....

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

You been out ridin' fences for so long now

Oh, you're a hard one

I know that you got your reasons

These things that are pleasin' you

Can hurt you somehow

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy

She'll beat you if she's able

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

Now it seems to me, some fine things

Have been laid upon your table

But you only want the ones that you can't get

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger

Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home

And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'

Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?

The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine

It's hard to tell the night time from the day

You're losin' all your highs and lows

Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

Come down from your fences, open the gate

It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you

You better let somebody love you, before it's too late

Well said..the benefit gig got off to a rough start - once the kid showed up I came in for the later part of his set - we were magic and all was well..my kids buddy who was putting on the show..has a mother who is a documentary film maker..she called from Haiti and they put her on the system..she was hearing gun shots..and was laying low in a tent...I hope she does some good work..a quarter of the proceeds will be forwarded to her to disperse....she's a tough old amazon...and not afraid to tell the truth...good nite BC - it's late and thanks for the tune. Love to all.

[charter.rights]

Who says we want to fix it? Another false assumption.

...or choice that you don't understand either.

Not your first mistake made in ignorance of the problem.....

[bush_cheney2004]

Not your first mistake made in ignorance of the problem.....

But always your last mistake....meh.

[Oleg Bach]

But always your last mistake....meh.

An accumulated chain of mistakes is what gets you to where you are. If there are no mistakes there is no progress. It's about adjusting and correcting the mistakes that leads to a good and accurate take.

[kimmy]

Not your first mistake made in ignorance of the problem.....

As I recall your personal philosophy, everyone is in control of their own circumstances and nothing happens to someone unless they choose it. So you must feel that there is no homelessness "problem" at all, right?

-k

[Oleg Bach]

GIVE

[Oleg Bach]

Give a person a bucket of water..and a garden and that person will get out of bed and tend to the plants so they can eat. It is rare that poverty just takes place on it's own - Look what took place in some of the African nations - Years ago arms dealers and the super powers waged surrogate wars for fun and profit..for resourses etc. So in a period of a couple of decades all the husbands and fathers were for the most part destroyed - This killing of the protective males lead to a collapse in the family system - and poverty soon intensified - Westerners including Russia and others would look upon the film footage of flys on the eyes of children and they would say "why do these miserable people attempt to keep breeding?" Mean while it was these very powers that brought about the poverty they now dispise.

[charter.rights]

As I recall your personal philosophy, everyone is in control of their own circumstances and nothing happens to someone unless they choose it. So you must feel that there is no homelessness "problem" at all, right?

-k

Nope. You mistake "my personal philosophy". I have said in the past that everyone makes a choice to be where they are and the circumstances will change to suit the decision / choice. But that does not mean that everyone makes conscious decisions, or that they are always aware of the choices they make. In fact advertisers make every effort to make sure that people's choices are automatic....

As far as homelessness goes, it is merely a symptom. Symptoms result from their root circumstance. And people make the choices that lead them in that direction.

There is a homelessness problem. It just doesn't fit where most people think it fits. The cure is working on the person to make better choices and providing support for right thinking.

Edited January 22, 2010 by charter.rights

[Pliny]

Nope. You mistake "my personal philosophy". I have said in the past that everyone makes a choice to be where they are and the circumstances will change to suit the decision / choice. But that does not mean that everyone makes conscious decisions, or that they are always aware of the choices they make. In fact advertisers make every effort to make sure that people's choices are automatic....

As far as homelessness goes, it is merely a symptom. Symptoms result from their root circumstance. And people make the choices that lead them in that direction.

Contradictory paragraphs.

There is a homelessness problem. It just doesn't fit where most people think it fits. The cure is working on the person to make better choices and providing support for right thinking.

I agree with B-C here. You make too many assumptions. You assume there is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Read what Oleg says. He is happy being broke. You would see that as the symptom of a problem that needed fixing. Oleg would not change his situation no matter what you did.

Oleg knows who he doesn't want to be and is content being who he is. If he wants to change his idea of himself then he will - but he is happy with his idea of himself right now so why should he change his self-image?

[charter.rights]

Contradictory paragraphs.

I agree with B-C here. You make too many assumptions. You assume there is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Read what Oleg says. He is happy being broke. You would see that as the symptom of a problem that needed fixing. Oleg would not change his situation no matter what you did.

Oleg knows who he doesn't want to be and is content being who he is. If he wants to change his idea of himself then he will - but he is happy with his idea of himself right now so why should he change his self-image?

There is no contradiction.

Homelessness not just is rooted in a "people without a home" cause. Nor is poverty rooted in a "people without money" cause.

If Oleg is happy being broke and would prefer being on the street then the problem lies in his thinking.In an affluent society like Canada there is no need for people to go without or to be martyrs to the poverty issue.

One can be anti establishment and still have access to all they need and I think in Oleg's case he proves that perfectly. Yet he is not on the street currently (as far as we know) he must have changed his mind about his previous circumstances and choose to live under a roof instead. While he may be content living without the spoils of the society that we live in, he nonetheless has lowered his needs and wants to a place where he is content. That to me is someone far more in control of his life than most 30-somethings with 2 cars, a mortgage they can't really afford and a lifestyle that may see stress take them to an early grave. Choice is power and most people deny they have the choice to make things different - including not being injured, not being threatened or attacked, or even dying too early from cancers, or other ailments.

[Pliny]

That's all that matters. Anything else is beyond my control.

If I had classmates who were jealous of the mighty Reliant ...well, the bar was set pretty low for them to keep up. If I had classmates who wouldn't associate with someone who drove such an uncool car, well, what do I care? I probably wouldn't have had the right brands of clothes for their liking either.

Classmates who had been given cars, well, perhaps they saw themselves as superior. Perhaps they saw themselves as fortunate. A lot of their peers saw themselves as spoiled rotten. Doesn't really matter. They didn't learn how it feels to earn things for yourself... but I'm sure most of them learned that in some other way.

There's no universally understood way of telling the rest of the world who you are. The car you drive, the clothes you wear, the message they send to anybody else depends entirely on their own interpretation. When I see someone driving a "Hummer", I have a preconceived notion about the driver that's probably very different from what they would like people to think.

People will make assumptions about you based on what they see before they know what you're about as a person. It's the way people are. A few years ago I got run off the Rabble/Babble message board for claiming that people who adorn themselves with tattoos and piercings are subjecting themselves to negative prejudices. Well, they are. We're all subject to various prejudices. You can't really control how they will react, but you would probably want to avoid using visual symbols that are at odds with the assumptions you'd like people to start with.

The interpretation when somebody wearing a nice coat asks for money is probably pretty obvious.

-k

What you say I mostly agree with.

"People will interpret what they see in a way that fits with their own experiences and ideas, and come to conclusions that they will use as the starting point when they interact with you."

I think the person's self image has a lot to do with his concept of people in general. A person doesn't usually see himself as any worse than other people. So as a person descends into, what most of us perceive as a dire situation that we would not wish upon ourselves, he perceives others to be lesser than himself sort of on a reverse vector.

I look at Oleg's posts on this thread and envision him as not being materialistic but he has rubbed elbows with the rich whom he now has no respect for. It is an assumption but I think he would like to have more but doesn't want to be like the people he has interacted with (his description of them is they have criminal tendencies)so he is content to remain as is. Is that correct, Oleg?

And that's the thing if you despise the rich you can never be rich but if you do perchance become rich you will despise yourself and any happiness that could be realized from that will elude you anyway.

I haven't developed a solid concept on this yet as there are a few things that need to be aligned if possible. There seems to be a conflict I can't quite put my finger on.

If people lose their self respect they will then make choices that may be harmful to themselves. But they never have a poorer image of themselves than they do of other people in general. Does that make sense?