h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today I experienced something that made me actually cry. When I was at the supermarket for getting my groceries I encountered a man looking just for a way out. He had been lured to Polokwane from Cape Town (about a thousand miles away) with a promise for work and then it fell through and he was stuck here. Now I know the style of sob stories… I have heard thousands of them. This wasn’t one, the guy was sincere and was in trouble. He had a bad stutter and I think he might have a mental disability as well. He was just trying to get back home, and he was really bad at interacting with people and he was desperate. I gave him some money … I wish I could give him more but I don’t really *have* money and for some reason my own life is costing money too.

But it got me thinking *again* how much we need true humane values in our society. We are living in the twenty first century and we … I mean humanity as a whole … have access to miraculous technology and many wonderful ideas. Why do we still have so many desperate people? Do you, o reader, know what true existential despair is like? I don’t mean angsting about the human condition, I mean not having food, not having shelter or a place to stay. I mean actually having experienced something like not eating in five days; sleeping unprotected in the open air in mid-winter and not thinking you’re going to survive the night; getting hit with a serious illness and not having money or access to help … and how about getting hit with it while having a bunch of children and/or other people dependent on you?

Humans ARE social beings! We do need each other … and the most technological societies of all are the ones where the average person benefits the most from the labours of others. So how come we don’t recognise the value of doing things that benefit others more? If we really made our societies efficient we could eliminate the majority of this despair. And it would benefit EVERYBODY. What is the use to you, to society, to have people so down on their luck that they cannot contribute to society? People are not homeless bums by choice. And homeless people cost the taxpayers a lot in fact, just in emergency room visits when they get heart attacks or other medical emergencies. People without jobs cost the rest money … people in jails cost money … all of the avoidable misery in the world costs money. Why can’t we, instead, figure out a system of society where everybody can actually make a contribution?

I am not being a woolly-headed hippy here. This is not going to be easy … it is in fact going to be very hard work. But I am sure that it is not impossible! We just need to figure out better ways to recognise people’s abilities AND their needs. We haven’t actually even started where that is concerned. We have right now social and economical systems that are extremely wasteful. We have some people who work extraordinarily hard and still struggle to get by; we get people who don’t do much work at all and yet are incredibly wealthy; we get people who cannot find productive employment. We have people with various disabilities who COULD make meaningful contributions … and many do … but their disabilities often exclude them from the needed opportunities. We have lot of work being done that is redundant or not very necessary. We have a FEAR of giving people ‘handouts’ … money or support that we feel they haven’t deserved. But often we’re not even giving them a chance to deserve anything! I am convinced that just about nobody actually wants to be a parasite who just receives without ever giving anything back. Because we are social beings – and this is a very big part of our nature – we DO want to be needed and honestly appreciated. We DO want to do something that others value.

I feel we need to work much, much harder at this … at giving people this support and giving people opportunities and encouragement so that EVERYBODY who can do valuable work, would in fact do so. Speaking from my own perspective: I have a serious mental health problem but I still can give the world a lot. As an artist and/or a writer there is much that I can contribute – I really feel that art enriches people’s lives. I want to do that as much as I can. I just want to be able to go on doing that. I would give almost *anything* just to have that opportunity. I welcome every single bit of support that I get, and I do my damnedest to justify it. Similarly, why can’t we give support to people to allow them to do *something* rather than nothing … disabled people, poor people, people with other problems … many would jump at the opportunity. Otherwise, why can’t we just be forthright and give people who are denied the opportunity of being ‘real’ people – integrated into our societies and able to contribute to it – access to a quick and reliable means of suicide? Because to be stuck in the despair hellhole is worse than death.

What can an average person do? First of all: if you have work then make the most of it, whatever it is, so long as it’s not something like being a mob assassin! Our societies do need to continue working. The better they work *as they are* the more leeway they have for improvement. The necessary things need to be done, even the bureaucracy. Those who have the leeway can think of better work they might do, or do charity work. Or find someone who really needs help, and do something towards helping that person. Everybody can be friendly to everybody they encounter. Everybody can take time to talk and listen to somebody else. Everybody can try and be a better and more reliable friend to at least one other person. Everybody can at least take a bit of time to think of our economical systems and the waste inherent in them and think about what could be streamlined and speak about it with others … maybe *you* won’t have the world-changing idea, but if you speak with it to many other people, maybe one of them would … or if they speak with many other people, maybe somewhere a genius will be prodded into coming up with a solution. We are all actually only a few links away from anyone else in the entire world. That’s how social we are in this day and age. And that’s also why anybody’s problem, anywhere in the world, is a concern any or all of us could help to solve.

Here's my 'like' vote for you. You've said it.

I have raised a child, cared for my elders when needed, I have been an unofficial foster carer for a number of children, an arrangement that official agencies have been content with, I have police people knocking at my door checking on 'run aways' to make sure they are safe until the morning and can be either sortd out with family or social services. I have been an anchor adult to others

A story that brings a smile to my face is when Hiccup and friend brought a vulnerable adult home that they had found in a tree they climb and we got her in to some proper housing three weeks later

My door is often open and I do a good line in advice

Set up voluntary organisations and kicked started projects and stuck with them long enough to see them have short term and long term benefits and be sustainable over decades in some shape and form.

Been the person to knock on the door to when peeps are not sure to do about someone sleeping in the alley/dismantleing the roundabout at the park/ getting all abit hairy in the lane. I was really chuffed when a few 'professionals' called me a community leader

still I am feckless underserving waste of space although to be fair I have changed some peoples perspectives a long the way of valueing the contribution to society you make without having paid employment and any sort of status

I am also lucky and don't forget it, I'm not sure how I would survive in other circumstances where there was no social security and health care system

Bless you Willem

Willem, you have such a good heart. There is much suffering in the world and sadly I think there always will be.

I heard a man on our radio the other day who is living just as you described, because he has a mental condition and has lost everything, his job, home and family and is living in a tent in a farmer's field.

That is no mean feat in the atrocious British winter we are already experiencing. Yet, strangely, i almost envied him - no responsibility, no bills, solitude which he badly needed as he couldn't cope with people.

Much is done in this country to help people but some still slip through the net.

Websailor

Willem, have a look at the new post:

http://www.h2g2.com/entry/A87777832

What people can do when they work together.

Had an apology as they can't find the page

Websailor

try this A87777832, i think it should work

Hi everyone! Thanks Peanut for providing the right link! And thanks Elektra as well, that is encouraging reading. Websailor I do NOT envy that guy in the tent ... I do NOT like shivering in the cold at night. But anyways how I see it is that we need to believe in the project that is human society and civilisation ... we also need to reform all that and make it worthy of our belief. We need to involve everybody in some way, some positive way. We need to build people up psychologically first of all. Over here that is a massive problem and yet nothing is done because just about nobody has any understanding of the problem.