Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Can, Need, Want, Need, Need.

I believe the young man from Stanford university simply meant that he wanted the future to feel what it was like to serve, selflessness is essential in life. I want my children to care for those less fortunate, but although it would be great to have an end to poverty, homelessness, and crime, these will forever be prevalent in human society. Although humans are generally good willed, among other things we are beings of ambition. Those who succeed through ambition widen the gap between themselves and those who are drowned by failure. People cannot all succeed, it simply cannot be balanced. Everyone cannot be rich, everyone cannot be poor. The Stanford student's children will be fortunate enough to have the same experience of working in the homeless shelter that their grandfather did.

I truly don't believe that in a nation this wealthy that there will ever be an end to homelessness. In the last 18 months how many people have been thrown onto the streets? I saw four different cars go by during the car wash on Sunday that had someone and all their belongings stuffed in their car as their makeshift home. And as these people get poorer, the wealthier get wealthier. What it would take to solve this is a Utopian style of life...since that won't happen, people would need to change, not because of laws, but because of choice. The people who can change this, need to want to change this, they need to need to change this. Maybe then my grandchildren will suffer the loss of experiencing the dampness of a homeless shelter, but thrive on the experience of a better world.

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