ARTICLE 3: HOMELESSNESS AND SPLITTING THE ATOM
by MR. PENSET.
Hello, how are you today? I hope you are well. I call myself MR. PENSET and I have been invited to write an article or two for the HOLISTIC HOME OFFICE located at ‘www.homeoffice.studio.’ I am told to write something useful, interesting and entertaining, but to keep it short. To start with, then, I shall say this, not everything I say will be useful to you but some things that are new may be of interest to you. It is up to you to decide which is which. This said, and keeping the article short, I want to discuss HOMELESSNESS AND SPLITTING THE ATOM.
A long time ago I taught primary school children, 7 to 12 years of age. Importantly, I took an active interest in their education. After five years of teaching them I formed the following idea: There were three kinds of students in the average classroom. The first kind of student was the general classroom population student and they were productive and got on well with each other. The second kind of student suffered with Attention Deficit Disorder, and there were very few of them; meaning, their attention-span was very small, maybe three or four minutes; and I know what I mean when I say this. They were sent to a small quiet room and did their lessons with success with the help of loving professional educators. The third kind of students in the usual classroom were the most interesting because they were usually loud, usually naughty, usually laughing and simply did not want to do their classroom studies. I decided to be more curious about this kind of student, and this is what I discovered.
The third group of classroom children, the children that were loud, naughty, usually laughing and simply did not want to do their classroom studies, I found could be subdivided. On the one hand there were students in the naughty group that found the class-work far too easy, and had time to pester other students. On the other hand, there were students in the naughty group that found the class-work far too difficult for them to do, and therefore they were compelled by their academic ability to drop-out of the general lesson-flow. In both instances the children became a disruption to the general class population.
But now, and quickly so, I want to apply this knowledge and experience to the problem of homelessness. Let me explain. But first I want to tell you what irritates me about the discussion of homelessness, and it is this: Time and time and time again I hear people say “There are too many homeless people on the street.” I usually frown when this is said, simply because this is the most uneducated tautology anyone can ever say about the matter. But let me get back on track: if we see a homeless person lying on the sidewalk we can say this: either life is simply too easy for them or life is too difficult for them. Now I am very serious about my remarks, but now I have to explain what I mean.
On the one hand, and very carefully said, suppose there is a homeless person on the sidewalk, then just maybe he has bad medical debts, maybe he has had a bad divorce, maybe he is intelligent enough not to pay over a certain amount in rent, maybe if he works the money he earns would be completely garnished. Maybe he has lost all of his paperwork and it is impossible to replace it. Maybe he has been shunted pillar-to-post for six months and has simply had enough of it. Maybe he is unqualified for an advanced society. Maybe he has a disease. Maybe he simply can’t get that foothold into a regular way of life. Maybe he has been “driven-down” by inflexibility computer-database science. If you put yourself in one of these very genuine situations, then you can see the rational that is being argued here, meaning:
Some people have been genuinely crushed by the weight of the social system that has demanded too much from them. Consequentially they have crashed and burned, become disenchanted and homeless.
On the other hand, and very carefully said, life can be seen as simply far too easy to live: food is abundant, the elasticity of constructional rights allows for every kind of protected street behavior. knowledge workers and advisors are simply ignored or insulted, and any kind of “urged” help or assistance is considered to be an infringement of their first amendment rights, proto-communism or government conspiracy; some even say homelessness is a preferred lifestyle choice. In this group some people are mean, self-centered, foolish, intolerable to live with, and pro-actively create hostile social situations. I have carefully written these words and know that what I say is very close to the way things are, meaning:
Some people have genuinely discovered how to live easily and in an uncivilized way in a society that genuinely allows it to happen due to their Constitutional First Amendment Right. Consequentially, they have decided to flourish, or wallow, in the wealth of a given society, and have chosen the lifestyle others call homelessness.
One morning I asked a lethally-weaponized security officer, no more than 26 years old, that worked at the local supermarket, the question: “How would you stop homelessness?” He answered “It is difficult to do; it is almost like splitting the atom.” After this remark, the idea of this article came to mind. Perhaps I have tried to split the atom with a suggestion in how to understand the problem of homelessness. In closing I shall say this, not everything I say will be useful to you but some things that are new may be of interest to you. It is up to you to decide which is which.