Homelessness is not all about institutionalization though, those were just the aspects of missions I did not care for and which would eventually make those places intolerable to me. It is a battle most every homeless person must face. In the relaxed and friendly state of Oregon however, whether I was in a mission or outside I actually found no small degree of freedom to make for myself and to connect with others. The ability to do so was for me what made the difference between a miserable experience in which I had no peace and felt lost, and one in which I had peace and felt at home more than ever before.
What frame of mind could this be that led me to such an unorthodox perspective? Growing up in America one certainly is led to believe there is absolutely nothing desirable about living outside or in a mission, but the brain works in surprising yet reassuring ways. An averse state of mind would only occur when I and others like me lost our ability or freedom to connect with each other in a way that is free of any expectations. Being as its homeless people we’re talking about I could just as well have omitted the latter requirement but it is an important distinction to make. This was a freedom that was intact for most of the time I spent being homeless in Oregon before development started occurring en mass and things started changing.
When this was not the case I would observe a distinct lack of desire to look strangers in the eye and greet them, a feeling of being disconnected, alienated, and lost. Though for the most part I had little shame or anxiety left in me, times such as this were the only times in which I’d feel any shame about homelessness or lacking sufficient property. There was also an increase in the aggressiveness of my attitude and an increase in my sex drive, or more specifically I’d have a weaker ability to overcome my sex drive rather than simply satiating or repressing it. These distinct fluctuation in my state of mind which so clearly corresponded to when all was intact among people on the streets and my/ our personal freedoms/ autonomy made me appreciate that we are indeed at least in part products of our environment. It showed me once and for all with clarity that perspective, personality, and the very ways in which we interact with each other are all pliable things which can be affected by external factors. This is not a dismissal of accountability, rather it is just motivation to try new things.
It is hard to overstate how powerful perspective can be; it can convince someone that the problem is with them, that things were never any different than they currently are, and that they will never change. The worst part about perspective is its ability to persuade a person of its truth, as if all of the above are some kind of stagnating and immutable reality.
Being as all of these averse affects are so correlated and arise in response to a similar cause I’ll refer to them as a state of craving which one comes to accept as normal being raised in today’s culture. I’m talking about the craving for achievements, close relationships, satisfaction, sexual gratification, and reputations. Ultimately the anxieties, shame, and the feeling of being lost or disconnected which inevitably follow in the moments when one feels they have not achieved these things should also be included in this definition. It might be characterized by the feeling of going somewhere rather than being somewhere. For lack of poetical/ spiritual articulation, I will go so far as to say that it is to be inspired by music rather than having it inside of themselves. It is the drive to attain the cures to the aforementioned anxiety of being poor such as a bigger apartments, cars, new clothes, and better jobs which in turn allow for what was really craved in the first place; connections among people be they family, the accumulation of friends, desirable acquaintances, friendly strangers, or lovers. Desire itself may be nothing more than a state of craving induced by the deprivation of people’s psychological need to have connection with each other forged throughout millions of years of evolving through group selectivity telling us to join a group or die (or just die off).
If connecting to others produces a desirable feeling or state of mind then the absence of this feeling or state of mind generates a craving to fill what is missing. Craving itself is a need to fill the hole left by what is missing. We need to fill it because we are missing things nature dictated that we needed. Possessed by this need we crave to fill it with things that we suspect will do so - and we’re usually right. Money helps serve the need for autonomy, relatedness, and it provides a sense of competence, but it does not do so without compromise. In our possessed state of craving we utilize money to help us fill the holes we need to fill but another hole pops up.
Money gives property ownership which in turn provides room for family, friends, and mates. This property ownership also provides a place of sanctuary and freedom from the expectations of others. Money allows us to live up to the expectations of others and pay for activities which often allow us to be in the presence of other people. But property ownership separates and alienates us from the multitudes that could be community, it creates over dependencies and stress between those closest to us, and it creates the stress of paying bills or maintaining the property. The activities money pays for are in themselves full of more expectations both social and economic. One often needs to sacrifice a degree of autonomy just to get more money. All of the things which money buys help us achieve some degree of autonomy, relatedness, or competence but it does not do so without taking away from another one of these things. Money contradicts itself; it solves one thing while simultaneously generating the need for another.
Thus we are stuck in this state of craving and our culture idolizes object of desire in an attempt to normalize the mental state of craving as is evident in our music, magazines, and movies.
Were we to truly achieve artificial intelligence perhaps it would recognize this fallacy that underlies the concept of money and see as illogical the irony of seeking dominion over ones surroundings as to do so requires separating from those surroundings. This is assuming it can feel and therefore requires connection of some kind, and if it cannot feel what is the motive to dominate anything or even preserve itself for that matter? Ultimately what is the point of currency but what you feel, and how can one separate what is felt from their relation to their surroundings? How autonomous and related can we be if we accept an environment which gives us incentive to frustrate these things?
As nature instilled in us the need to seek connections, people will often conform to what they observe to generate connections in a given environment. The unacceptable method of making connections then becomes shameful; people who volunteer at a mission never stand on the other side of the line and learn to receive as well as to give, thus there remains a clear distinction between givers vs. receivers or hobos vs. volunteers. Homeless lack common rights, they are subject to being broken up by cops, and the only place they have freedom to congregate is in a mission where they are subject to others rules. So it is that seeking connections in this manner becomes shameful. Were it not for these things homeless would create for themselves, disperse as is necessary so as not to create pressure on each other, and would congregate as is necessary in order to develop a sense of community and safety in numbers. To be homeless would then be more like just living outside and it would be less shameful to congregate in this fashion. With the ability to connect to each other in a way that is neither forced nor interrupted, it is then just a different way of life, and those paying for the right to connect in a fancy restaurant might feel foolish when people are outside having a better time for free.
But those connections are broken and it remains shameful.
The power of being connected to others is more than just wellbeing, for lack of suitable terminology in the English language I’ll call it Brahma. It is the tingles running up your spine and into your forehead telling you that you’re a part of something much larger than yourself. It is the only state of being that fills one up and cures the induced state craving called desire. It leaves one free of the constant need to articulate dreams or mentally posturize oneself. These are all symptoms of a need to fix what is broken - to put together what has been separated. Along with homelessness comes opportunities to connect to others in a manner that is free of expectations. Over and over I found this to be conducive to a better kind of happiness that is characterized by a state of feeling connected and satiated rather than a state of disconnection and craving.
It is not a matter of seeking what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, rather it is the craving for these things (‘good’ or ’bad’) that destroys our peace; it separates us from a state of feeling connected, grounded, at home, in the moment, and free of anxieties about the past, present or future. It’s like losing your identity or ego and realizing that what is good for yourself is also what is good for others. From here there is energy and inspiration, clarity of thought, and the peace of knowing others are likewise at peace.
“Lust, arising out of rajo guna transmutes into anger. Know this insatiate craving as the worst enemy and the most immoral sin. Like smoke making the fire obscure, a mirror covered by dust, a fetus covered by womb, in the same way the intellect is covered by the lust. Arjuna! Un-satiated lust is like fire and an enemy to wise man and his intellect stands veiled by this lust.”
- Bhagavad Gita
Evolutionary biologists may explain the sensation of feeling like your drifting off the face of the planet (the antithesis of feeling grounded) when incapable of finding connection or a sense of belonging to group selective factors. One particular argument of interest to me was Edward Wilson’s use of natural selection to explain the development of “tribalism” in religion.
“The instinctual force of tribalism in the genesis of religiosity is far stronger than the yearning for spirituality. People deeply need membership in a group whether religious or secular. From a lifetime of emotional experience, they know that happiness, and indeed survival itself, require that they bond with others who share some amount of genetic kinship, language, moral beliefs, geographical location, social purpose, and dress code…” - EO Wilson
What frame of mind could this be that led me to such an unorthodox perspective? Growing up in America one certainly is led to believe there is absolutely nothing desirable about living outside or in a mission, but the brain works in surprising yet reassuring ways. An averse state of mind would only occur when I and others like me lost our ability or freedom to connect with each other in a way that is free of any expectations. Being as its homeless people we’re talking about I could just as well have omitted the latter requirement but it is an important distinction to make. This was a freedom that was intact for most of the time I spent being homeless in Oregon before development started occurring en mass and things started changing.
When this was not the case I would observe a distinct lack of desire to look strangers in the eye and greet them, a feeling of being disconnected, alienated, and lost. Though for the most part I had little shame or anxiety left in me, times such as this were the only times in which I’d feel any shame about homelessness or lacking sufficient property. There was also an increase in the aggressiveness of my attitude and an increase in my sex drive, or more specifically I’d have a weaker ability to overcome my sex drive rather than simply satiating or repressing it. These distinct fluctuation in my state of mind which so clearly corresponded to when all was intact among people on the streets and my/ our personal freedoms/ autonomy made me appreciate that we are indeed at least in part products of our environment. It showed me once and for all with clarity that perspective, personality, and the very ways in which we interact with each other are all pliable things which can be affected by external factors. This is not a dismissal of accountability, rather it is just motivation to try new things.
It is hard to overstate how powerful perspective can be; it can convince someone that the problem is with them, that things were never any different than they currently are, and that they will never change. The worst part about perspective is its ability to persuade a person of its truth, as if all of the above are some kind of stagnating and immutable reality.
Being as all of these averse affects are so correlated and arise in response to a similar cause I’ll refer to them as a state of craving which one comes to accept as normal being raised in today’s culture. I’m talking about the craving for achievements, close relationships, satisfaction, sexual gratification, and reputations. Ultimately the anxieties, shame, and the feeling of being lost or disconnected which inevitably follow in the moments when one feels they have not achieved these things should also be included in this definition. It might be characterized by the feeling of going somewhere rather than being somewhere. For lack of poetical/ spiritual articulation, I will go so far as to say that it is to be inspired by music rather than having it inside of themselves. It is the drive to attain the cures to the aforementioned anxiety of being poor such as a bigger apartments, cars, new clothes, and better jobs which in turn allow for what was really craved in the first place; connections among people be they family, the accumulation of friends, desirable acquaintances, friendly strangers, or lovers. Desire itself may be nothing more than a state of craving induced by the deprivation of people’s psychological need to have connection with each other forged throughout millions of years of evolving through group selectivity telling us to join a group or die (or just die off).
If connecting to others produces a desirable feeling or state of mind then the absence of this feeling or state of mind generates a craving to fill what is missing. Craving itself is a need to fill the hole left by what is missing. We need to fill it because we are missing things nature dictated that we needed. Possessed by this need we crave to fill it with things that we suspect will do so - and we’re usually right. Money helps serve the need for autonomy, relatedness, and it provides a sense of competence, but it does not do so without compromise. In our possessed state of craving we utilize money to help us fill the holes we need to fill but another hole pops up.
Money gives property ownership which in turn provides room for family, friends, and mates. This property ownership also provides a place of sanctuary and freedom from the expectations of others. Money allows us to live up to the expectations of others and pay for activities which often allow us to be in the presence of other people. But property ownership separates and alienates us from the multitudes that could be community, it creates over dependencies and stress between those closest to us, and it creates the stress of paying bills or maintaining the property. The activities money pays for are in themselves full of more expectations both social and economic. One often needs to sacrifice a degree of autonomy just to get more money. All of the things which money buys help us achieve some degree of autonomy, relatedness, or competence but it does not do so without taking away from another one of these things. Money contradicts itself; it solves one thing while simultaneously generating the need for another.
Thus we are stuck in this state of craving and our culture idolizes object of desire in an attempt to normalize the mental state of craving as is evident in our music, magazines, and movies.
Were we to truly achieve artificial intelligence perhaps it would recognize this fallacy that underlies the concept of money and see as illogical the irony of seeking dominion over ones surroundings as to do so requires separating from those surroundings. This is assuming it can feel and therefore requires connection of some kind, and if it cannot feel what is the motive to dominate anything or even preserve itself for that matter? Ultimately what is the point of currency but what you feel, and how can one separate what is felt from their relation to their surroundings? How autonomous and related can we be if we accept an environment which gives us incentive to frustrate these things?
As nature instilled in us the need to seek connections, people will often conform to what they observe to generate connections in a given environment. The unacceptable method of making connections then becomes shameful; people who volunteer at a mission never stand on the other side of the line and learn to receive as well as to give, thus there remains a clear distinction between givers vs. receivers or hobos vs. volunteers. Homeless lack common rights, they are subject to being broken up by cops, and the only place they have freedom to congregate is in a mission where they are subject to others rules. So it is that seeking connections in this manner becomes shameful. Were it not for these things homeless would create for themselves, disperse as is necessary so as not to create pressure on each other, and would congregate as is necessary in order to develop a sense of community and safety in numbers. To be homeless would then be more like just living outside and it would be less shameful to congregate in this fashion. With the ability to connect to each other in a way that is neither forced nor interrupted, it is then just a different way of life, and those paying for the right to connect in a fancy restaurant might feel foolish when people are outside having a better time for free.
But those connections are broken and it remains shameful.
The power of being connected to others is more than just wellbeing, for lack of suitable terminology in the English language I’ll call it Brahma. It is the tingles running up your spine and into your forehead telling you that you’re a part of something much larger than yourself. It is the only state of being that fills one up and cures the induced state craving called desire. It leaves one free of the constant need to articulate dreams or mentally posturize oneself. These are all symptoms of a need to fix what is broken - to put together what has been separated. Along with homelessness comes opportunities to connect to others in a manner that is free of expectations. Over and over I found this to be conducive to a better kind of happiness that is characterized by a state of feeling connected and satiated rather than a state of disconnection and craving.
It is not a matter of seeking what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, rather it is the craving for these things (‘good’ or ’bad’) that destroys our peace; it separates us from a state of feeling connected, grounded, at home, in the moment, and free of anxieties about the past, present or future. It’s like losing your identity or ego and realizing that what is good for yourself is also what is good for others. From here there is energy and inspiration, clarity of thought, and the peace of knowing others are likewise at peace.
“Lust, arising out of rajo guna transmutes into anger. Know this insatiate craving as the worst enemy and the most immoral sin. Like smoke making the fire obscure, a mirror covered by dust, a fetus covered by womb, in the same way the intellect is covered by the lust. Arjuna! Un-satiated lust is like fire and an enemy to wise man and his intellect stands veiled by this lust.”
- Bhagavad Gita
Evolutionary biologists may explain the sensation of feeling like your drifting off the face of the planet (the antithesis of feeling grounded) when incapable of finding connection or a sense of belonging to group selective factors. One particular argument of interest to me was Edward Wilson’s use of natural selection to explain the development of “tribalism” in religion.
“The instinctual force of tribalism in the genesis of religiosity is far stronger than the yearning for spirituality. People deeply need membership in a group whether religious or secular. From a lifetime of emotional experience, they know that happiness, and indeed survival itself, require that they bond with others who share some amount of genetic kinship, language, moral beliefs, geographical location, social purpose, and dress code…” - EO Wilson
