Had a day off on Tuesday to keep a couple of appointments. First off was my assessment for another counselling program. That was ok, now I just have to wait until they've a space for me. Have to admit I'm really missing the counselling I was receiving at the Burley Lodge Centre at the moment. I'd built up a good relationship with my counsellor there and I miss that too.

Just have to keep hanging on I guess. So after that I went down into the city for a dentists appointment. She's a bit rough and it was a painfully unpleasant experience but it's taking me so long to find an NHS dentist I think I'll make do.

Anyway, on the way into town something happened that I wanted to write about. Walking along I was thinking about the household shopping I needed to do while in town. In particular I was trying to think where I would spend the change in my pocket and what I would put on the plastic.

Engrossed in comparing the prices of items on my mental list to the cash in my pocket it wasn't until I came to cross a road that I looked up and saw a homeless guy ahead of me. He didn't seem in too bad a state but he looked pretty young and very miserable. I stopped for a brief chat before giving him all the cash I had.

Now I've never really got any kind of feel good kick out doing things like this. It can hardly be considered generous for us to share a bit of cash, food and/or banter with someone who has to live outside simply because we can't be arsed to make a better society. It's not generous at all, in fact it is the very least we can do.

In fact, looking back at it, I got far more out of that transaction than he did. As I walked away I didn't feel any self righteous ego buzz but I did suddenly feel free. Suddenly the whole question of where to spend that cash had disappeared. I felt lighter, freer and walked on with my head up, taking in the world about me.

Thinking about it this is not the first of my experiences with homeless people that had proved inspirational. I remember leaving a Pizza Hut a few years ago with the last few slices of a truly gargantuan pizza in a doggy bag.

I was about as full as I had ever been, I mean I was in physical pain, but I was determined to take those slices home and eat them, after I'd paid for them. I actually walked past the homeless guy at first before being struck by a thunderbolt.

Here I am, literally full to bursting, and I'm clinging to this food when there's someone right here who could be starving. The look of grave distrust left his eyes once he opened the bag to find that, 'fucking hell, there's really some food in here'.

Funnily enough although the idea of leaving the food I'd paid for at the restaurant really got my back up, just giving it away in the street felt absolutely fine. Again I felt released from a compulsion that was making me its bitch.

I guess what I'm trying to get to, in my own lazy, rambling fashion, is that the things we want to own end up owning us. The more money we get the more things there are to think about buying, there's no such thing as enough. The more food we get the fatter we get, there's no such thing as enough. The more comfortable we get the more lazy we get, THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS ENOUGH.

Even though it's contrary to everything we've been taught and everything that surrounds us in modern society today, giving stuff away for free can be an amazingly liberating experience. If nothing else then the simple thrill of doing something so apparently ridiculous and outside society should be motivation enough to give it a go.

It's not just about liberating yourself either. There are plenty of things you can do that are free that can help lighten other people's loads. Since I've started work at my current day job there've been a couple of occasions where I've stopped to help people.

One lady's car broke down so I gave her a push, another very elderly and frail lady was struggling to get her wheelie bins in in the rain so I did it for her. For some reason that I just can't comprehend they were both mortified that they found themselves unable to offer me and monetary recompense for my efforts.

Again, it's not about being a 'good' person or a 'kind' person, it's just about being a person. Whether we like it or not, the main strength we've evolved is to communicate and co-operate, we're here to help one another out guys, that's it.

Now since I started working I've tried to put the money I'm earning to some kind of decent use. I've joined Amnesty International, CND and group called 'conscience'(1) who are campaigning to give people more choice over how their taxes are spent, (see their link on the useful links list => ). Overall however, money and material ultimately just get in the way of our aforementioned purpose and subsequently cause us problems.

In all my limited experience with homeless people the one thing I've found they appreciate more than anything, more than money and more than food, is just to be recognised as a human being. From what I can tell surviving on the streets is just as much about will power and determination as it is about finding food and shelter. A bit of eye contact, a bit of respect, they don't cost you a thing but they can give someone else a vital lift.

Of course society couldn't function without money, it's integral to our whole way of life, it's just the way things are, nothing will ever change that, ever, alright? Just accept it, believe damn you, believe! Well I don't. The only thing that keeps us locked into this system is our belief that there are no alternatives.

Life should be free and so should we.

footnote

(1) conscience: apparently 10% of all the tax we pay goes towards the military, this means that regardless of your beliefs regarding war and violence, you're funding it on a grand scale. conscience refer to this as a form of financial conscription, an analogy that I rather like, and are campaigning to allow people to opt out of paying to kill people if they don't want to.