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Humans are complicated, eh?
Nov. 19th, 2019 09:38 amTwo scenes from an emotional rollercoaster.
Sunday I went to the Arisa Concom (*) meeting at the Westin and had two interactions with strangers that... just wow.
Pulling off 93 onto the ramp to the surface streets I saw one of the people suffering homelessness who are often asking for handouts from stopped traffic.
Of late I've been walking to and from North Station so I pass a number of these people and have started carrying dollar bills that I hand to people or put in their cups. Past me used to make judgments about how people would use these dollars and present me is trying not to do that. I still won't give money to the people who shout at me about Jesus's imminent arrival or similar, but folk holding up bits of cardboard... well, I'm well-off and they are not.
So I beckoned the man over and fished out my wallet. As I opened (**) the window I noticed he was advancing tentatively, holding out his arm at maximum reach, taking the bill with fingertips. He kept his head back and shoulders hunched up... defensively. At first I wasn't sure, then I realized he was afraid of me. I had a horrible flash of imagining the terrible things people must have done to him to make him afraid of someone trying to give him money he needed to survive. Why are humans so terrible?
I thought about that the rest of the drive to the Westin and felt pretty depressed about humanity. Like, why can't we be decent to each other, not to mention the old dictum about not kicking people when they're down?
Inside the hotel I decided to get myself a cuppa something warm and went into the Starbucks there. I chatted a bit with two friends who were there for the meeting and as I finished my order the woman behind the counter asked me "Are you with Arisia?"
I admitted I was, and that we were there for a meeting. Then she said, "Thank you for supporting us during the strike."
I hadn't even known that the S'bux employees were members of Unite Here, the union that struck the Marriott chain last year. Arisia supported their strike fund and, when it came down to the wire, we pulled our convention out of the hotels. It has cost us dearly and may cost us even more but it was still the right thing to do (***) and it was really heart-warming to be known and remembered that way. Sometimes humans aren't so terrible and I'm glad to be part of a not-terrible group.
------- (of course my entries come with footnotes - I'm a complicated human, too)
(*) You're going to come, right? And maybe help us out? We can use your skills; if you somehow don't have a job yet let me know...
(**) I originally wrote "rolled down" but cars don't do that anymore. It's as antiquated as "dialing" a phone. Know what I mean?
(***) Even sitting on this wrong/losing side of the arbitrations I still think it was the right thing to do. In hindsight, we would've gone about it differently but the core belief - you don't cross a picket line - is correct.
Sunday I went to the Arisa Concom (*) meeting at the Westin and had two interactions with strangers that... just wow.
Pulling off 93 onto the ramp to the surface streets I saw one of the people suffering homelessness who are often asking for handouts from stopped traffic.
Of late I've been walking to and from North Station so I pass a number of these people and have started carrying dollar bills that I hand to people or put in their cups. Past me used to make judgments about how people would use these dollars and present me is trying not to do that. I still won't give money to the people who shout at me about Jesus's imminent arrival or similar, but folk holding up bits of cardboard... well, I'm well-off and they are not.
So I beckoned the man over and fished out my wallet. As I opened (**) the window I noticed he was advancing tentatively, holding out his arm at maximum reach, taking the bill with fingertips. He kept his head back and shoulders hunched up... defensively. At first I wasn't sure, then I realized he was afraid of me. I had a horrible flash of imagining the terrible things people must have done to him to make him afraid of someone trying to give him money he needed to survive. Why are humans so terrible?
I thought about that the rest of the drive to the Westin and felt pretty depressed about humanity. Like, why can't we be decent to each other, not to mention the old dictum about not kicking people when they're down?
Inside the hotel I decided to get myself a cuppa something warm and went into the Starbucks there. I chatted a bit with two friends who were there for the meeting and as I finished my order the woman behind the counter asked me "Are you with Arisia?"
I admitted I was, and that we were there for a meeting. Then she said, "Thank you for supporting us during the strike."
I hadn't even known that the S'bux employees were members of Unite Here, the union that struck the Marriott chain last year. Arisia supported their strike fund and, when it came down to the wire, we pulled our convention out of the hotels. It has cost us dearly and may cost us even more but it was still the right thing to do (***) and it was really heart-warming to be known and remembered that way. Sometimes humans aren't so terrible and I'm glad to be part of a not-terrible group.
------- (of course my entries come with footnotes - I'm a complicated human, too)
(*) You're going to come, right? And maybe help us out? We can use your skills; if you somehow don't have a job yet let me know...
(**) I originally wrote "rolled down" but cars don't do that anymore. It's as antiquated as "dialing" a phone. Know what I mean?
(***) Even sitting on this wrong/losing side of the arbitrations I still think it was the right thing to do. In hindsight, we would've gone about it differently but the core belief - you don't cross a picket line - is correct.
