So my book club and I read this book called the Mole People by Jennifer Toth which details the author's experiences talking with and getting stories from the homeless that live in the tunnels under New York City.
Whenever I read something like that or watch something, like Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days episode where he and his fiance lived on minimum wage for a month, I stop and look around myself, at all the things I have. These people are just trying to survive one way or the other. They take what they can get. I expect, in fact, feel entitled to the apt I live in, in a good neighborhood. I have collections, like my books and movies which I take for granted. I take guitar lessons and belong to the gym and have cable. These people have nothing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on giving these things up. Those are the things I spend my money on just as the people who live in tunnels spend their money on what they choose when they have it. But I wonder how certain things happen to certain people. I do think the author was naive in her research. She ended up finishing because of a couple different incidents that happened in the tunnels.
The people who live in the tunnels are a different from, say, starving artists...starving artists choose that life....in a lot of cases it seemed like homelessness chose them. I couldn't imagine living that kind of life, what it does to you, how it makes you feel and behave. I would never want to.
