[cparedes]

Lots of homeless people I've come across are usually looked down upon by other people for god knows what; silent assumptions suck.

I've talked to a few of them and I've been amazed, every single time, what sort of stories they bring to the table, and the sort of intellect a lot of them possessed.

After talking with an old homeless guy at length over a period of a year about literature and various other things, he carted over a basket full of books to give to me and a few of my friends - he was a huge book nerd and talked a lot about McLuhan, life, and literature.

It was pretty obvious that many people didn't have much of a high opinion of him - it was only after you've decided to so much as look at him and say something that you'd find out the truth.

I don't know what the hell happened to him, but I didn't see him after that year.

I miss him dearly.

[mgw]

Sadly there's also the opposite side. I always try to talk to homeless people begging in the street, getting their attention by giving them a small amount of money. A few weeks ago I came to talk to this girl coming from a different country who was just visiting friends in mine. I was looking for that special spark you found in your acquaintance but I simply couldn't find it. After about 20 minutes I had to admit that she was just plain stupid in the normal sense of the word and brainwashed enough to reject the help society offered her. It was a bit depressing to see that she really was just a homeless person and that there wasn't that much more to her.

[pmichaud]

You saw what she chose to show you.

[hugh3]

Ockham's Razor: is the stupid homeless woman (a) stupid or (b) an evil genius who is pretending to be stupid for some unknown reason?

[pmichaud]

No, she's not an evil genius, but let me spin you a yarn.

She's a homeless woman, so she was perhaps raised by a demanding and misogynistic father figure, from whom she learned to act helpless. Then she figured out in high school that acting dumb makes boys like her. She sort of fell into the identity because it was easy -- her family, friends, and society at large fully expected her to be a dumb slut, so it was easy, even for her, to believe she was, plus she liked the attention.

That's a pretty common thread, and people are WAY more complicated than that. I've found people have rich and varied experiences, even dumb ones. That you couldn't glean anything from this girl other than that she was "stupid" maybe says more about you than about her. She has thoughts and feelings that maybe she either can't express in a way you understand, or that she doesn't care to express to someone who is clearly an outsider.

I'm just saying that people surprise me, and I have a hard time believing some girl is just irredeemably "stupid" and that's all there is to know about her.

There are plenty of people who think I'm whatever they think

[hugh3]

I tend to think that if she were that crafty she'd probably have found a way off the streets by now. The only people left on the streets are the worst of the worst.

[cparedes]

Look at my post above about a story where homeless people aren't exactly scum?