Numbness Epidemic
I’ve spent almost 6 months in New York and the word “normal” has taken on a different meaning. Part of daily living in this city includes passing multiple people who are homeless - begging for food and money, witnessing acts fueled by anger and sadness, and coexisting with some of the 8 million people who live here.
During my first month here, my best friend Rosie came to visit. Her bus was late and she arrived around 12:30am. The train ride home felt like a punch in the face. It honestly felt like we were in a post-apocalyptic world where people had dropped like flies. We saw multiple bodies spread on the dirty subway floor. Certainly not a comfortable place for anybody to sleep. A concerning scene, not knowing what would happen if we woke someone up. We passed about 5 humans in this state, passed out on the concrete. You would think they were dead. What an introduction to the city. Is this supposed to be the new normal?
Yesterday, when I was on the subway, I noticed a sign that read, “Symptoms of an overdose - dilated eyes, limp body, shallow or no breathing, unconsciousness”. It made me wonder - how many people have I walked by who were overdosing? What if their limp body was really a dead body and nobody noticed?
When we normalize extreme suffering, hunger, pain and strife, what are we really doing? Telling ourselves that this happens all the time so it is easier to move forward and not think/care about it? New York is direct. Very in-your-face. Like other big cities, the disparity is obvious - it is "normal". Billionaires who work on Wall Street passing multiple people living on the streets without batting an eye or offering a dollar. Even in my case, being a yoga teacher who is passionate about ending suffering and wanting to help humanity - when faced with homelessness, there is potential danger involved. What do you do? Try and wake someone up if they are passed out? Nobody likes being woken up by a stranger. What if they wake up angry and ready to fight? It is so unpredictable and most people have come to the same consensus - it's easier to ignore homelessness than to engage with it. Our privilege allows us to ignore the suffering of others. How can we leverage our privilege for change instead of using it to ignore homelessness?
We are numb to inequality because it is uncomfortable. We are conditioned to view others in terms of what they can do FOR us. It is like we are scared to have conversations with people who won’t benefit us. There is a quote by Johann Wolfgang van Goethe, “you can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” The New York mentality (really, the western, imperial, white supremecist, capitalist mentality) is to be selfish. A mentality of only looking out for yourself. What they don’t tell you is that we need each other. We need other humans. For every person you see outwardly struggling, there are plenty of others around you struggling internally. To live is to suffer, to thrive is to lessen your own suffering, and to prosper is to lessen the suffering of others.
I don’t have any type of inspirational conclusion for this post, simply that we are in the midst of an epidemic of numbness. People around us are dying on the streets and we see it, but don’t really see it. How can this change? What can we do to help? Offer money, food, notes of hope, words of encouragement? What would really make a difference in this situation? I am curious to know your thoughts.
❤️
k