Free-D

You must have had that trying experience of being in the toilet when the Light and the hand dryer simultaneously turn off. Naturally, the dryer will have simply cooled your hands a little, leaving them dripping wet – just right in fact to make the task of fumbling with the light switch that bit more interesting.  Life’s like that: the main ingredients of ones existence, job, health, family, and friends  are all in place and seemingly constant, dependable factors. However, they are in fact on a timer. Eventually they all “blink off”. If you’re lucky they don’t all go at once. It doesn’t actually take that much to put anyone in the gutter: the loss of a job, the death of a husband or wife, mental illness.  These terrible blows are hard enough to deal with individually, which is of course how they usually arise. Now and again though someone’s unfortunate enough to experience a dual or multiple “blink” – and the security, comfort and joy of life can disappear in an instant.

Salamanca’s parks are apparently full of down and outs, drunks and ne’er do wells. And according to the police, there’s nothing they can do about it. Well that’s a refreshingly honest and perceptive remark from the boys in blue anyway. Obviously only a certain percentage of these “delinquents” have ended on the street due to calamitous circumstances. Actually their lives are a lot more complex than either “bleeding heart” liberals or “damn their britches” Tories would like to make out. The question (as always) is “what can we do about it?”  Well, between the iron fist of the law (the workhouse, debtor’s prison, community service etc) and the sentimental view  lies a third choice. This third choice is actually a mish mash of the two: and it’s this we usually end up with. Effective solutions to problems rely on intelligent and creative approaches, which are unfortunately rarely persued by those holding the reins. It’s important that we consider how and why some areas are safe  and why other parts of the city are more prone to “undesirable occupation”. But this is only one part of the problem – in fact it’s “our” side of the problem. By “our side” I mean the side of the “normal”, non alcoholic (nominally at least), currently employed, “respectable” people. It’s not fun being on the street, or being an alcoholic. Begging isn’t a bundle of laughs and neither is the low self esteem which goes with it. So, why do people live like this? Well that’s a question which goes to the heart, not only of society but to ourselves as empathic or empathically challenged individuals.