The World I Know

Saw a homeless man on the train today. Or a man really down on his luck. It was the A train cars in which the seats are orange and are set up in clusters of 3 seats running along the walls of the train and in between every 3 seat cluster is a pair of seats that segment the two clusters. The man in a dirty white t-shit and jeans was laying on across a 3 seat bench. He had a pretty thick scraggly beard and his eyes were open. staring across and probably slightly above by where his head was laying.

I felt an incredible sense of sadness when I saw him. It really hit me hard. Because it was the A train I didn't have many stops to wade through before reaching 14th and 8th avenue from 42nd street. He looked cold since he was hugging himself. In that moment I recalled that the weather is headed to fall and winter. I wondered where this man is going to be or doing to stay warm. I wanted to do something and all I did was get off the train where I would transfer to the L train.

I did nothing. I've been deceived by various people so I can use that as an excuse not to have helped that man but I'm not. I can also argue that one has to take care of themselves before taking care of others. I dunno. I'm just reflecting now.

I learned to despise the movie Pay It Forward but, the thing is that the message of movie had some worth to it. The whole idea of doing a good deed for someone and simply instructing them to go and do a good deed for someone else. I should have done that today.

Damn. Perhaps I'm learning that it is true that the best songs are the saddest songs. What inspires a sad song?

To be cliche, this is the world I know.