walking home

Saw two really poor kids as I walked home from dropping off Simons’ motorcycle on Sunday. I killed the battery so I had to fix the situation. So these two kids see a me coming, and it’s not long before they run up to me to ask for money… it was one of those times that I made the decision before I saw them that I wasn’t going to give any money. I had two 10 thousands in my wallet, and someone would steal it from them, plus there were many kids around and they’d all come flocking… and I gave some money to a Congolese refugee just an hour earlier, and I told myself that I already gave today… but that never works. The interesting thing is when the poorest people in the world come ask me for money, the first thing I think is how much I will get judged for not giving any money, or giving just a little bit of money. That because I’m now aware, now I've seen with my own eyes how bad, bleak, and desperate, most people on the planet live each day, I’m now in more trouble because I have knowledge, and money. I can’t play the: “I didn’t realize things were that bad” card. That’s a major card to have taken away, I keep thinking many of us in the West will try and play that card. I’m sure we all know it will never work, but that’s not the point. We think it might work if we bank on the grace card, and that’s all we need to give us daily peace of mind… and it’s peace of mind that we need to maintain a level of happiness in life, and all these abundantly poor, are keeping me from having comfort in my card, which is messing with my happiness. But these two kids have something I’ve not seen before. Each of them, in their hand carried a dead bird. I’m talking about one of those little birds that fly around in trees and bushes, and they tweet, and I remember thinking those are really small birds, you can’t eat those birds. So I asked them, “what are you going to do with those birds?” Of course they said they’re going to eat the birds. I felt really bad, and regretted asking. It was better if I just suspected they might eat the birds, but didn’t know for sure, but now I knew that they were so starved that they were going to eat these little birds that I thought were inedible. They kept walking with me and asking for money, and I kept wondering, “how hungry do I have to be in order to eat a bird like that?” I thought that I would eat grass, or leaves, before I’d eat a dirty little bird like that. I couldn’t figure out how they managed to kill those little birds. Neither of them had a home made sling shot and each bird wasn’t much bigger than a pebble that you sling at the bird to kill it. After about a hundred meters, the kids gave up trying to get money out of me, and they left me alone with my thoughts. For some reason, I pushed the guilt away and thought about my brother. I don’t know why, I just remember wondering about what he was doing. I pictured him framing a house in Bozeman, Montana, in the cold. Then I was wishing that I was back in America, but for a new reason that I never had before. I wanted to be in the States because I thought it was much easier to avoid everything there… I didn’t pin point what “everything” was, but I felt it, and I thought, “if I was in the States, I could avoid everything.” Then I thought that avoiding everything isn’t death, avoiding everything is a coma. It’s deciding to be brain dead to the world around you. I knew you could do that anywhere. I didn’t have to go to the States, but as soon as I realized that, that is what I wanted, I decided that was just stupid. Where do those thoughts come from anyway? Why is my mind doing that to me? So went I got home,I went into the kitchen, and poured myself a cold iced tea, then I went to the lab and loaded up a bunch of video footage, and started editing. I edited for a few hours until my mind could only think about the video I was making. It was a more comfortable thinking process. I guess I was self medicating. I’ll see those kids again. I know I will.