All of us know this, none of us can stand it and it always eats away at us, so we don’t need reminding of it when people think that they are so morally higher than us that they think they can emotionally blackmail us like that
Nooo I honestly don’t believe that Seifer meant to imply that by starting this thread…maybe I’m more optomistic, but I chose it as a way to rethink my actions lately and just to be thankful, not to feel offended. I had nothing to feel offended about, I just offered a little compassion…I don’t understand why others call it emotional blackmail unless they are just as subseptible to feeling strongly about these cases as well…
There is hardly anything we can do directly for those people in Africa anyway
This is what I disagree with you about; there was a 12 year old boy in, Ontario I think, a few years back. His name was Greg and he read about a little boy in the middle east who had died and never known what it was like to be loved and to grow up like a normal boy…so Greg started a children’s organization, Children Helping Children (I believe) where kids and teens and adults all raised money and awareness to build schools and hire teachers for places that couldn’t affort to. If I remember correctly, all it took to build schools, was 3000 dollars. Can you imagine that? And years later, he has contributed hundreds of education institues in places like Africa where kids can get schooling…is it a bandaid solution? Yes. Well it help them in the long run? Maybe, and if not, it’ll give kids what they deserve- their childhood, which most never experience in those countries. It only took one person to care, and to lead and inspire thousands. You never know what will happen, whether you raise money, or awareness. To admit that we can’t do anything after accepting the fact that we can’t do anything…? That’s just not cool.
Of anyone should be made to feel guilty about all this shit that’s almost completely OUT OF OUR HANDS it’s the people with immense amounts of money or power that can actually make a dent in the problems facing these people. I’ll carry on doing my bit helping homeless people, but sorry, me and my loved ones come first.
We don’t need to have immense amounts of money to help someone living in poverty. See, people attack huge corporations and people that live lavish and luxurious lifestyles, but they fail to see that they can contribute things as well. Whether it’s time, effort, money, whatever. Sure, I’m pissed of that Donald Trump can surround himself with gold and have biographies airing explaning just how rich and fabulous he is, and I don’t think it’s right, but shifting the blame to the rich doesn’t help anyone.
I agree about loved ones too. I’d do the same; I think about those I love more than those out on the streets, but I still feel bad and wish I could will myself to do something.
Take out the gov’t in Africa and the problems wouldn’t be as bad. I realize I have a good life. Every now and again I need a reality check. If something is wrong in my life, I do have the mentality that someone out there has it worse therefore I shouldn’t be feeling miserable when one of these people is trying their best to live on. I don’t feel guilty, I feel lucky that I was born here and have all my family around me. It isn’t my fault that things are horribly wrong in other places, I do what I can when I find time and the money. My life, my family, my friends come first.
You know, I have a very interesting story about this. True story, too.
About 6 months ago, I was living in Findlay, Ohio. I was working at a low paying job at a fast food restaraunt and I had just been kicked out of my apartment. Despite working 35 hours a week for a measly 600 dollars a month, I still had time to meet people and hang out. I met this girl who was a wanderer. She asked me if I wanted to hitchhike to New York with her. I said yes, since I had at that point given up all hope that I was going to get a better job and a place to live, and did not want to tell my mom that after three years of being out on my own, I was willing to accept defeat.
Me and the girl(who shall be referred to as “A” from this point on) got a ride from my former neighbor to Toledo, where we slept inside a truckstop movie theater while watching X2. A then told me her story about how she used to sell herself for money, among a lot of other things. So I came up with the idea to pimp her out at the truck stop. We hitchhiked to Chicago, because it would have been easier to get a ride to New York that way. I had the choice to go to California, and I knew I should have gone to California. But I decided to go to New York anyway, because I had never been there before.
After we hitched another ride, we went to Newark, New Jersey. We were dropped off in probably what was the worst part of the city, about five minutes from Penn Station. I had 125 dollars and a 20 sack upon my arrival in Newark. Near Penn Station, I was being shot at by a bunch of Crips(they thought I was a Blood because of my Communist T-shirt and candy apple red UFOs).I ran like the wind and made it to Penn Station. A showed up five minutes later. We took the train to Manhattan. But I lost my 20 sack.
Upon arriving in Manhattan, I made a lousy 100 dollars pimping A out. The next morning, A meets a coke dealer. She runs off with him, and I never saw or heard from her again. I got a cheap hotel on the Lower East Side, and I was broke the very next day. Fuck, NYC is expensive. Well, being flat broke and out of options with no way to get a hold of anybody, I took it upon myself to beg people. I begged about 50 dollars the next day, got a hold of my former employer in Findlay, and asked him if he could send out my last paycheck. He said he would do it, too.
A week had passed, and no sign of my paycheck. I was alright at begging, but I met a couple of homeless drunks who watched out for me and made sure nobody fucked with me. Then all of my money that I got(from begging, playing chess, selling loose cigarettes, and working for a homeless organitazion) was pretty much going to either alcohol, or hotel rooms on Staten Island. Usually alcohol. I only stayed in a hotel three times the whole time I was in NYC.
By the second week, I was on Times Square begging tourists every single day. My pitch worked. I was asking for money for my gambling and alcohol addictions. They liked my pitch because it was honest, unlike those “homeless and hungry” people who ask for food money and spend it on booze, crack, coke, or smack. Most of the homeless people were really cool with me, as I used a portion of my begging proceeds to give to other beggars. A couple of them were a little pissed that I was doing better than they were despite being the new kid on the block. Who knew a $7 panini sandwich and a $1.50 can of soda could taste so good.
Flash forward to the end of the first month. No sign of the check at General Delivery. I was hanging out with a homeless anarchist punk at NYU’s Female Housing. We tried to pick up girls, but they got too drunk and passed out. The girl I tried hooking up with stole my hand drum. So I went back to my corner that I slept at off of 29th and Broadway. Shit, that was a long walk. I went back to Times Square to beg some more.
It was now Gay Pride Week in NYC, so I made a new pitch for my begging. The sign read:
Need money for a penis reduction. Anything will help. Thank You and God Bless.
I raked in quite a bit of money on the Square using my new pitch. But my trip to Greenwich Village didn’t fare so well. I raked in 35 dollars in twenty minutes, then did nothing for three hours because all the people in the village figured out that I was in fact a straight man by how I oogled every single female that passed by. My cover was blown, so I hopped the bus back to Midtown while being chased by an angry mob of Village People(where do you think the band got their name from?) who probably would have raped me and took my money if I didn’t hop the bus on time. Back in Times Square, I continued pitching, until the cops ran me off the block. Then I returned to my new street corner which was on 42nd St and 9th Avenue, about a block away from the Port Authority Bus Terminal/shelter, Right in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. where some crackhead bitch who wanted to get back at my acquaintance stole my book bag. Which had my clothes and toiletries.
It’s halfway through the seventh week and my paycheck finally comes through General Delivery. It took me several hours to cash this paycheck, and I literally walked from Midtown to Brooklyn and back before I finally got it cashed. I was burnt out on being a beggar after nearly two months and took the bus back to Ohio, still not ready to accept failure and move back with my mom. I was lucky I got the check when I did. Because if it would have even been a day later it would have been voided.
Upon my return, most of my friends are ecstatic to see me, some surprised that I was even still alive. But my closest friends betrayed me. They decided that being hugged up on drama queens was more important than giving me a place to stay while I looked for a job. So I decided to go with a different group of people I knew.
I put in five applications every day for two weeks, while living on my buddy’s couch which I earned by helping my friend and his other roommates clean the house. And being the lone person who was able to supply alcohol. This goes on for another two weeks, with no calls from prospective employers. And then finally I admitted defeat and moved back in with my mom.
The moral of this story(which has been shortened greatly) is that even though I had to go through this(albeit of my own accord), I learned a lot from it, and I am a more humble person because of it. And that I have always been grateful for what I have, and am also grateful for the fact that my mother took me back despite my actions before I had set out to live on my own.
Ren, thank you very much for your message.
Your father is a good role model, someone to look up to, someone to emulate, someone to aspire to be like.
I wish there were more people like him.
I am not trying to lay a guilt trip on anyone, or preach. Quiet the contrary – I am confessing.
Oh yah, i am trying to change. Just gave $$$ to Red Cross
Numero dos : It’s not only out there. It’s in our countries too. The post should have said “You should be fortunate to live in families that can afford plenty of stuff.”
Numero tres : If I recall correctly, it’s aerophagia.
Aerophagia is when you swallow air and keep putting it out again via burping.
A swolen belly like that may be caused by:
A) osmosis changes in the body due to malnutrition, which causes water to acumulate in the belly’s tissues;
or
B) less probably, but also possible, an infestation of parasites in the vessels between the bowels and the liver, which causes lymph (I think this is the name in English) to acumulate in said vessels.
Edit: Dizzy, you are the man. You, truly, are one with the world.
Don’t put ‘I’m not here to preach’ when you are.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has noticed that some people think saying things actually makes them true.
Let’s try it: I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire I am a fucking millionaire
just because there are unfortunate people out there, doesnt mean the average person is spoiled. paris hilton is a spoiled whore, we arent anything like that stupid slut. we have jobs that we get our money from. I doubt you even care about those people in africa. you just want people to think you’re deep and care about other people besides your dumb self. but you dont. you just want to act better than the rest of us. you sir, are no Sting, you arent even Bono. you make me sick.
I find that somewhat hard to believe. After senselessly bashing a simple Happy Holidays thread that meant no harm whatsoever, you put up a picture of poor Africans and accuse us all of not knowing what it’s like out there. “I wonder what they’re getting for Christmas?” Some of us don’t have the power to get rid of all the world’s problems in an instant. You might not want to take the assumption that we’re all gheedy rich bastards (see Urk’s post on that). Hell, I was in charge of a project at my school that raised thousands of dollars to help children IN AFRICA, so I take offense to that. If you really are 101 years old - which you probably aren’t - then grow up.
