Reply #30: Beggars are just people who are suffering. [View All]

[ConsAreLiars]

All kinds of people. Good, bad, whatever. The best solution is a society that actually cares and offers the many kinds of help needed, but we aren't there yet. In the meantime, however, they beg, and we who are not (yet) reduced to that level face a choice:

Dismiss them all as subhuman;
Try to decide which one is "worthy;"
Or simply recognize that even if it is a drugs or booze addiction that brought them to this place, rather than the more noble path of job outsourcing or catastrophic illness, they (we) all need "a little help from their friends."

When traveling in a more civilized society (India), on confronting rows and rows of beggars I eventually learned that, for those who could, giving each a few paise (a few fractions of a penny) was the ethical solution. I never really was able to cope at that time, but the lesson stuck with me. Just do a little, whatever insignificant bit you can, and it will help.

Don't worry about who is "deserving." Whether the recipient needs the temporary oblivion of a hit or is attempting to get a meal for his/her kids is unknowable, and thus irrelevant.

And, for what it is worth, if you take the time to look that beggar in the eye and say hello, you just might not only discover someone who is as human as you, you quite possibly might look into the eyes of someone who is is stronger and better, if not so fortunate.

(edit grammar)