Today I took the subway to work, like I always do. I have never felt worse in my life than when I got off.
Most of the time, the train I take has no seats, people are always standing. A stop after I got on, a seat opened up and I settled back to take a nap until I got to work. As soon as the train reaches 53rd and Lex, in midtown east, it sort of empties out. A homeless guy got on and sat in the row of seats opposite me. At this time, there was a guy sitting about one seat apart from the homeless guy (approximately, because it's just one long bench), and another person next to this guy. A few stops later, as the train further emptied, and I was drifting in and out of sleep, I noticed that the non-homeless well-to-do NY banker guy had gotten up and moved down the car to another bench.
Further, as people got on, the entire bench where the homeless guy was sitting remained empty, and no one sat there even though there were no other seats. I was dumbstruck. How could people treat other people this way?
Another homeless person had been sitting quietly in a corner at the end of the same corner, with 3 large plastic garbage bags in front of her (the person was wearing a hood, so I couldn't discern gender). The bags were filled with what I guessed was empty plastic bottles and other recyclable material. The person got off at Penn Station, but before the doors closed, stepped back into the car and handed the other homeless guy a few dollars. I was amazed.
I planned to give the homeless guy some money before I got off, but I thought I had no cash. I later checked my wallet and did have $7, which I wished I had given to the guy on the train. As I write this, I am still feeling sick to my stomach at the way the guy was treated, even though he didn't show that he was affected by the people around him. I hope I never treat anybody like this, ever.
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That is bad, and I would hope anyone reading this blog would ideally be not so callous. However, what we do in reality, the little choices we make for our daily lives to increase our comfort are sometimes unconscious. This can easily be perceived as unfeeling, but we make them day in and day out without even thinking. If you think about it, each and every one of of use could have done at least one thing differently today to make the world a better place. It's not that we should be mad that the world isn't as we hope it to be, that the mountain is too steep to climb. Instead we should take any step we can, whenever we can.
Besides, at least it's not as bad as the SEPTA (Philly & Suburbs Tranist) riders who sat idly by as a psycho attacked a passenger with a claw hammer. That was just dick.
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