I bought a homeless man a doughnut today
I walked over to a local library today. It was less than a mile away. Instead of staring down at my phone screen on Google Maps to tell me every step to take, I read the map. I told myself "when you see this landmark, turn here, and then you'll get there." The directions were simple enough that I felt I shouldn't need a navigator to get me there. So, I had my phone with me, but I left it in my bag. In one hand, I carried a little coffee mug with a cap. In the other, nothing. The city is quite noisy. People like to rev their cars in the middle of the day, for some reason. Children make a ton of noise at recess at a playground in a nearby park. Young children, the oldest was probably six or seven. I felt relieved when I didn't see a smartphone in sight, not even from the adults watching them.
There weren't really any birds chirping, but it was sunny out and I could hear the wind blowing. These are things I didn't really notice before. Oftentimes when I walk in the city, I'm not really present. I'm thinking about the next homework assignment that I have to do, if it's not homework, it's something else. What's next? What's next? What's next? These thoughts are always at the top of my mind. How do I get through school? How am I going to pay off these loans? Did anyone text me?
It was a short walk, but it felt longer than usual. I tried my best not to be distracted. As I get to the library, I notice a homeless man sitting out front. He's not bothering anyone. He's just sitting there, he's got a shopping cart off to the side filled with his stuff, and he sits on a small roll up mattress. I walk past him into the library. The library itself is surprisingly noisy because of a class field trip. The students are a bit rowdy and the teacher has a hard time getting them under control. It's also, a tiny library. It's a one-room library, essentially. There are no hallways. Just library. That's it. One half of the room is the kids section, the other is everything else.
I walked around, perusing their selection of books. What I like about libraries is that the selection is typically carefully curated by their librarians - there is no algorithm that suggests something to you. I like to think there is some conscious thought as to which books get purchased and which don't considering their limited budgets. The fact that I am always near a library is a blessing I often take for granted. We have multiple lifetimes of information readily available to us, and yet, we still struggle to find meaning in today's brutal world. I had the feeling that this particular library was a bit more left-leaning. I'm not saying this is bad by any means, it's just on observation.
On the magazine wall, a magazine was proudly displayed in the middle with the headline "Project 2026 - Trump's Plan for a third term." On another wall, you could check out a copy of "The Communist Manifesto" - which I had hoped was there as more of a historical artifact, rather than trying to push an ideology. From a historical and even present perspective, communism in practice has really meant genocide and authoritarianism for innocent people...
But then after giving it some thought, I wasn't sure if this was the case, because on the other wall right next to "The Communist Manifesto" you could find religious, Christian books, maybe some were evangelical. It's just a library, I guess it's not that deep. I ended up checking out a book called "This Is Your Mind on Plants" by Michael Pollan, which talks about opium, caffeine, and mescaline. I'm not interested in taking drugs (other than caffeine) but I'm genuinely curious about them, and I enjoy reading about nature-related topics.
I thought about the homeless man outside. As someone who has recently started attending church, I feel uncomfortable sometimes that we read in scriptures to be kind to the poor, and this is something preached to us incredibly often. But, how many of us who go to church on Sundays actually carry out those teachings? I decided to go speak to the man.
"Hi sir, I don't have any cash with me, but are you hungry? Can I buy you something to eat?"
He looks up at me and he says "Sure. I would like a doughnut."
"I'm not sure where to find any doughnuts, can I get one at the gas station across the street?" To which he replies "there's a doughnut shop right down there" and he points down the block. "I'll walk with you."
As we walk, he asks me how my day is going. I say it's going OK. And I ask him how his day is going and he says, "It's going good. I try to stay mobile to keep my immune system healthy." We end up walking a short distance to this shop that looks a little bit sketchy. There's a lot of people simply hanging out outside, and inside the shop. People I normally wouldn't talk to. But it seems like they knew this man I was walking with. The shop owner seemed to know the man, and he seemed surprised that I was paying for him. The doughnut ended up being $1.
The man could have gotten so many other things, like a full meal, but all he wanted with this really cheap doughnut. As we're walking back, I tell him about how my parents always looked down on homeless people when I was a child, and it made me feel bad.
"I wouldn't call it being homeless, we get to travel a lot." he replied, "It's more of being in a crisis. Some of us get into debt, and some of us forced out of work. I used to be a driver, but they made me stop so I could figure things out, so I could grow and help other people."
When I asked him where he goes when the weather gets cold, he told me he just finds a place to camp out.
He thanks me, we exchange names and shake hands. He seemed appreciative that someone took the time out of their day to buy him a doughnut. I know I can't help every single homeless person that comes my way. I just wouldn't have anything for myself. Growing up I was told that if you gave a homeless person money, they would simply spend it on drugs or alcohol. I almost never carry any cash on me nowadays, which makes me feel awful when I see a cold, old woman out on the street, lacking support, desperate for help. Just because someone is homeless, does not mean they aren't a person. I sometimes wonder what their story is, where they are from, how they ended up in that situation, and if they have any hope of getting out of it. After speaking to my fiance about it, some people are actually pretty content with being homeless. Life does seem a lot simpler, you really only have to worry about yourself. And what struck me, is that people in that little shop actually spoke to each other, even if it was just small talk.
We might think about the things we take for granted sometimes, often, we don't. Someone can tell you there are homeless people out there, but the reality doesn't sink in until you spend some of your precious time on this planet with someone who is way worse off than you. Throughout this semester, I found myself having anxious meltdowns almost every single week. Just being worried about shit. Worried about the current state of the world. Worried that I wasn't good enough.
But, after hearing the man say he had a "good" day despite what little he had, it made me think about my own situation. That perhaps, I should try not take what I have for granted so much, and work on controlling my emotions a little bit better. I'm in school. I can just skip class if I want to. I can just drop out if I want to. I have enough savings for at least a little bit, I could pivot and figure out what to do. If my degree didn't work out, the time would feel wasted, but I have been assured that we (my fiance and I) can weather a few bad storms and be fine... When my mental health is bad, when I am upset, I can just run away from my problems for a little bit and run to my fiance's place where he will hold me all day and tell me he loves me, and that everything is going to be OK.
I realized not everybody has that. Love. Stability. Comfort. Support. Even just running water. Internet access. Excess. Everything. Wow. Should I really be wasting my time on certain things anymore? Things like just rotting on the internet, bad friends, worrying. And, once I graduate, I have the privilege of figuring out how exactly I am going to get out of my home state, or at least away from this darn school and almost certainly never come back again, to see these people, to get away from these people, that I just can't stand being around anymore.
When we look at our situations and we feel down on ourselves, I know for some of us, it truly is a bad situation. But for the rest of us, is it really all that bad? Is it really something where you can't take a step back, and see what is going well?