6:00 a.m. I woke up in the tent. I still have a splitting headache. I feel weak and I have no motivation. It’s almost as if I just want to pass away.
7:30 a.m. I’m starting to feel a little bit better. The headache seems to be slowly going away. I still have low motivation, but I am going to start writing. Really just one month left of this homeless experience. I’m thinking about all the homeless people in Massachusetts. I think the estimate that I read online was nearly 20,000 people in Massachusetts are homeless. How is our state going to allow thousands of illegal immigrants or what they call refugees into the state when we already have American citizens homeless. We’ve all seen homeless people, and I think a lot of times we overlook their situation. We think that their circumstances are a result of poor decision making. Knowing what I know now, this is not the case. People are homeless in Massachusetts and the rest of the United States because of a widespread human rights crisis. Our politics and our social systems have failed everybody.
A message from a friend and my response:
My friend “Wow! How do you feel overall? I cannot even imagine this process and experience. I look forward to your final publication and learning about how much you have grown and will be able to expose the deep need for help.”
Me “I was looking at the bugs the other day on my tent. I realized that bugs are well adapted to nature. They have everything they need, food, shelter, and they live their lifespan and reproduce. Their psychological debt is very small. Human beings are no longer adapted to live in nature. People that are homeless and are living outside, unless they have the equipment they need to be comfortable, are worse off than bugs. They may have food but they do not have adequate shelter or comfort. Human beings are the most cerebral of All creatures. Or at least one of the most cerebral. I think the smarter an animal becomes the crueler it becomes. We people like to think that we are good, we are not. There is enough resources and money in the world to alleviate the suffering of all people. I firmly believe that this will never happen. We can’t even do it in Massachusetts. Human beings are the great deceivers. We can create magnificent technology, and even that just becomes a medium for deception. Since human beings are now the Apex of all animals, all that’s left for us to do is continue to reproduce and deceive ourselves and each other.
The silver lining is that all people possess the ability to understand that in our nature we are destructive and deceptive and it is my mission to tell the truth. This truth is so absolute that everything I’ve just said also applies to myself. I’ve accepted that and hopefully I live long enough to overcome the base and corrupt nature of my own mind.”
This response actually coincides with some of my thinking from a few days earlier. I’m sure it is not what this person expected of me. But I am truly discouraged by what I’ve learned about the corruption that has allowed so many people to suffer needlessly.
At around 2:00 p.m. a spider climbed down from The lantern in my tent. While I was lying I felt something crawling on my face. When I looked on my pillow it was the spider. It was a very brave spider and also inquisitive. I blew on the spider and asked the spider to leave. The Spider did not leave, so I took some pictures.
I spent the rest of the day in the tent. I continue to have phone calls and texts with my girlfriend. It seems she is of the mind that we are not broken up. I will entertain trying to work things out with her. I will definitely secure my own room somewhere, because I’m not ready to live with her.
I did leave the camp once today. I left around 4:00 p.m. to pick up some psychedelic mushroom chocolates for myself and my girlfriend on Saturday. With the way things are gone I’m not sure how that trip’s going to go, but hell why not. I also stopped at Wendy’s and I ate a large meal. I’ve only been eating almonds and a few Reese’s cups during the day. While I was at Wendy’s my girlfriend called me and said that she wanted me to come stay the night. I told her I would do that if that’s what she wanted. Well I was driving back to my camp to get my stuff, I realized that I have handball tomorrow. When I got back to the camp I called her to let her know that I have handball tomorrow and it’s probably best if I just stay in the area. This infuriated her because I said that I would go there and spend the night with her and her son.
I ended up staying at the camp. But she texted me a lot and tried to guilt trip me. I actually feel empowered that I changed my mind. I’m glad I didn’t go over there tonight cuz she probably just would have been on my case, which would have sucked. I was able to get myself comfortable on my air mattress in my tent. Hopefully tomorrow is a good day.
People have the capacity for both terrible and incredible things. Far too many permit awful things to happen, though, often because we do not seize the opportunities we have to (imperfectly) try to make the world better. Appreciate you taking this mission upon yourself.
P.S. Hope the chocolate excursion went well