It’s certainly not for the feint of heart but perhaps despite what personal misgivings most of would have about choosing to opt out of the daily rigors of living in society within its mores and constructs one Cardozo student took it upon himself to give away what most of would take for granted, a roof over their heads and to start sleeping on the streets, for one whole year.
Say what?
yuobserver: D: So I’m in my second year at Cardozo and I already had an internship of my dream job. And I already had it set up for the summer and, like, my running was doing well, I didn’t have romantic problems, and no financial problems, and my apartment was great, and the weather was great, and just everything was so good; yet I wasn’t satisfied, my life just felt meaningless because I didn’t have really any challenges so you know, just thinking back on humanity and mankind, I’ve realized that it has always been difficult for humans to survive until recently with technology and everything.
So I don’t think that early man, Neanderthals and people a thousand years ago ever struggled with this feeling of boredness [sic] because they didn’t have any problems. I kind of wanted to model my life after that a little bit and make my survival more difficult, so I could just give myself a problem. With that said, it’s a problem that I can control and stop it whenever I want…and it’s a problem that’s difficult but not impossible to achieve.
Pretensions aspirations? Hobo chic? Something to later tell prospective girlfriends, employers. Or just something that would force him to reevaluate the world and himself in a new context?
And thus begins a complicated relationship with the Health and Racket Club where the young man (who chose to keep his identity a secret during this interview with the school paper) describes how he maintained 4 different lockers for his personal effects, managed to sneak in extended naps at the school library and the realization that one doesn’t necessarily have to sleep under a roof to be able to get up the next day and do normal things that most of us do with a roof over our heads. Which is not to say a discretionary income which afforded this young man the health club membership and access to the school library certainly gave him lots of mileage, something you can never have enough of when you are literally homeless.
As an aside he packed up his mission just on November when it was starting to get colder, an option legitimate homeless people just can’t get up and do as easily.
Does that mean he recommends homelessness? Hardly, but it was his way to come clean with himself and see what he was capable of, something unfortunately many in society have had to adjust to (this author once spent 2 weeks sleeping in an abandoned loft building after his girlfriend threw him out and had no where to go) for whatever reason and hopefully grow from. Of course the other alternative is to become a bum, but then again how close is that line where some of us just give up and others persevere to get back on our feet?
Shouldn’t you try becoming homeless too? Unless of course you already are…?
For the full interview which offers an intriguing read go here.
