i've met batman, he's the same here as there. if FFB is the same in reality as he is here, well, no thanks. same goes with heyp, i mean, dude, what is your problem? you're so cryptic and an awesomesly insidery super duper. oh, i guess it really sucks to be homeless
im sure a lot more people are more likable in person than on here. Typically people with the veil of a monitor are different and then again people's writing style is much different than conversation. tone certainly doesnt go through well here either. but you can be an a-hole on the internet and a nice guy in real life...at least thats what i tell myself when reading a some posts.
thegary, we can only hope that one day we can be privy to the no doubt fascinating information contained in all of heyp's inside joke posts. But until that day arrives (and keep in mind....it might not), we MUST forge on with the rest of our lives. We simply owe that to all those that love us and depend on us. Perhaps one day I will start a thread containing inside jokes that only the 10 or so people that I've met in person from this site will understand. That way, the other 22,927 bbs members can be as envious of me as we all are of heyp. EDIT: Oh yeah...I feel kind of sorry for homeless people not having a home and all
I was dreaming of the past And my heart was beating fast I began to lose control I began to lose control I didnt mean to hurt you Im sorry that I made you cry Oh no, I didnt want to hurt you Im just a jealous guy I was feeling insecure You might not love me anymore I was shivering inside I was shivering inside I didnt mean to hurt you Im sorry that I made you cry Oh no, I didnt want to hurt you Im just a jealous guy I didnt mean to hurt you Im sorry that I made you cry Oh no, I didnt want to hurt you Im just a jealous guy I was trying to catch your eyes Thought that you was trying to hide I was swallowing my pain I was swallowing my pain I didnt mean to hurt you Im sorry that I made you cry Oh no, I didnt want to hurt you Im just a jealous guy, watch out Im just a jealous guy, look out babe Im just a jealous guy
I used to live on memorial drive and would drive through the park to and from work. One day when I was at the memorial/610 stop light I saw a guy , who was well dressed, walking with a gas can going from car to car. I was a ways back so I could see everything that was going on. The guy got some money from somebody and started in the direction of the gas station right past the intersection. Once the guy realized that quite a few cars passed him, including the one who gave him money, he turned right back around and and started hitting up people for money. That dude didn't even have a car and he was tricking people into giving him money. I actually played with the dude and told him that I could put a couple of bucks on my credit card. I asked him where his car was?..he walked away..
There is a big difference between the chronically homeless and transitionally homeless - and a big difference between people asking for change and chronically homeless. They all tend to get painted with the same brush, but they are very different - Tthe 'asking for change thing' is not necessarily a reflection of one's housing situation. Things like unemployment, illness, affordability of housing can make a very effortful and decent person / family homeless, and letting those people "rot" is pretty nasty. As for the chronically homeless populations - mental health / drug addiction, etc - whether or not you give them change is not really the biggest deal - the resources to treat problems and or motivation to have those problems treated is very complicated and sad. To me, I have a profound feeling of gratitude for my secure life when approached by those people. As for the transitionally homeless, who lose their shelter for a variety of reasons - not always but sometimes out of their control - those folks deserve and need better services. Resources tend to get siphoned to the other two groups, because they hassle us more. But that is not where the bulk of the problem is - the bulk of the problem stems from minimum wage not being enough for people with a desire for a decent quality of life to support anything other than a lean and lucky person / family. And if you are born into a crappy school district with crappy schools, a cycle of poverty is statstically speaking, requires an improbably dramatic intervention to escape. So anyway, those transitionally homeless especially deserve and need help and services, and they have little or nothing to do with getting hassled on weekend nights for change.
Thank you for this post-I think how the lowest people on the totem pole live says a lot about our civilization Right now in Port Arthur Texas there is a lot of poverty. There has been a lot of poverty here since the early '80s and before. Due to two large construction projects starting --there is greater demand for low skilled labor- truck driver type jobs. People that have been chronically unemployed are going to work and being trained. Due to drug testing - once you get the job it pays to stay clean.....I expect there to be a moderate drop in drug- alchohol abuse.There are signs here that jobs and economic vitality do more for people than the state can ever attempt to accomplish. If I am with my wife I always give the dirty looking homeless some money. If I am by myself- I never give any. I never give the hustlers on the side of the road anything
The way I think about it is that giving money is more about the person giving than about the person receiving. Viewing it Karmically if the person begging is running a scam then they will accrue bad Karma while the person giving is giving out of their own generosity and will still accrue good karma.
I agree with this but I still think that people can be as likable online as offline. While we are going through a filter I've never liked the idea of using the anonymity of the internet to be rude and uncivil. Anyway speaking for myself I'm probably less of an a-hole online than I am offline.
Good post -- the best way to ensure those people get the help they need is by supporting the agencies and services in place to support them. I am by no means an expert but I have been spending time at a crisis shelter and I've met lots of people doing their best but just having trouble staying above water. But I still think the best thing we can do is educate ourselves to the services in our area to help these people, support these services (financially and with our time), and then point those in need to those services. Those just "scamming" you won't be interested.
Pardon me side tracking the thread for a moment. I'm going to be back in Houston in two weeks from July 19th to July 22nd and as always am interested in meeting Clutchfans. I have to admit that FFB and Batman Jones are two that I've been interested in seeing what they are like in real life so if y'all are up to I should be available in the evenings of Thursday the 19th and Friday the 20th for drinks. First round is on me! (I would by more but from if FFB drinks remotely close to what he claims to his bartab will bankrupt me.)
Actually, there isn't any difference between "good" karma and "bad" karma, it's all karma all the same. And all karma comes back to haunt you. If you do a "good" deed to appease your ego or make yourself feel better - such as giving money to a begger, you really are just compiling cosmic debt you'll have to pay off later. That's the actual religious teaching. The fact is that it's not really generosity that drives people to give money to a begger - because there's nothing generous about the act. It's a weak and unaware thing to do. It reflects someone who wants to "think they are a good person" as opposed to someone who commits themselves to doing the right thing.
In general I think you are right and the terms "good" and "bad" don't necessarily apply to Karma. What I mean by those terms is that cosmically if you do a generous act generosity will be returned to you whereas a selfish act will lead to you suffering from selfishness. Not exactly. The religious teaching is about compassion and compassion that is unconditional. If you give money to a beggar with no expectation of what they are going to do with it then that is a compassionate act. If they rip you off well at least you acted out of compassion. I agree though if you give money just to make yourself look better then that isn't compassion. Have you been reading Ayn Rand? People give money to beggars for all sorts of reasons and I think it is presumptious to believe they are doing so only out of their own ego.
Sounds great. I'd like to meet you too. I hope Fatty comes too. I've hung out with him once or twice and he's a good guy. And, incidentally, thegary is right. I'm no different here than in real life. If, in real life, I was accused of something like wanting people to die or wanting terrorists to succeed I would have a real problem with the person that suggested that. Otherwise, I get along very well with virtually everyone I meet regardless of their politics or any other difference of opinion.
When are you going to be in town? If I were you, I'd try to put a get-together, uh, together. We haven't done one in a while. If you'll be in on a first or last Friday of the month, I'll try to reset that video game tourney I wanted to do. And BJ is fine off the board.
Well, an act is compassionate if it's spurred by some sense of shared suffering and a desire to alleviate that suffering. Personally, I don't think giving money to a begger is a compassionate act. Compassion is not necessary a "good" emotion. If you give money just to alleviate the suffering of someone temporarily, I think it's really to placate one's ego. The giver may in fact get more out of it then the receiver. Because the truth is that the receiver is on the losing end even if it is a scam. They are the one's lowering themselves and becoming dependent on a lifestyle that is risky and not truly sustainable. An individual that truly was empathic and wanted to alleviate suffering in the long run wouldn't give the person a dime (unless it was to keep the person alive or some other urgent matter). A truly compassionate act would be to teach the person another way to get money. Feed a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach how to fish and he'll eat forever whole thing. I don't see things as "compassionate" vs. "ego driven"...acting on emotions is always ego driven. And compassion is an emotion. I think the way you see Karma is a bit more of a buddist interpretation rather then Vedic, but I can't say I've studied the religion I grew up under, I just know it from what I have learned through what I have been taught. But think about it this way...if you act out of anything other then a dispassionate way - you're doing it for selfish reasons. Not that there is something wrong with it....but if that person gets scammed, I'd say that the scammer is only playing on the weakness of the person who thinks they are being charitable or compassionate or whatever. Let me put it another way... What would you do if you found yourself with no money and no connections. No one to turn too? Let's say there wasn't a homeless shelter, and there wasn't a soup kitchen (which there are of course). Let's also say you had a kid to feed. Would you go to the street and beg for money every day to feed your kid? I hope not. What would you do? You'd probably beg for work. You'd find someway to earn money. So - that being said...if someone begs you for money, and they are able bodied....why would you give them money? Out of compassion? That they are what? I never give money on the street, but there was one exception. A guy came up to me and said, "Can you spare some money - i'm miserable and I just want to buy some booze and drown in it". And I said, how much money have you already collected for using that little trick. And he said, "a lot". I gave him five bucks.
