St. Pauls Hospital. I’m in the tall building
I’ve watched so many “golden-buzzer” moments on America’s Got Talent, cried so much, and laughed so much that I feel totally uplifted and upbeat on … well, first of all on the new folks who are emerging all over the planet – US, Britain, Spain, Ireland, etc.
I’ve already mentioned how impressed and inspired I am by the hospital staff here.
Then there’s the contrast. I passed a man skulking in the hall in an area where there was nothing of possible interest to an ordinary person.
He was dressed in darkish clothing with a darkish shoulder bag and wearing … a surgical mask. I think he thought he’d “pass” with the mask. Instead he stood out.
I turned back for a second look and he turned back to see if I was looking. I informed the nursing station and received a briefing on how many thousands of dollars the hospital loses yearly to people coming in off the street and taking whatever equipment they can lay their hands on.
Will simple income equalization fix this? I’m not sure. I don’t think so. A universal basic income doesn’t address vasanas.
I’m sure if I made enquiries I’d find he had a hard life and has become shaped by it and inured to life’s disappointments.
More and more I see that we’ll have to give thought to how we help those who’ve fallen through the many cracks in our society.
The rich have gotten very much richer in my lifetime. The poor and struggling have gotten many times poorer and the struggle many times harder.
Anyone who remembers the phrase “a living wage,” stand up. Not many, eh?
Automation and exporting jobs have eliminated many of the pathways to advancement … no, many of the pathways to a job.
Gone are the entry-level positions. Gone are many careers, professions, and trades – with no action taken to care for the people affected. And, in the buyer’s market for labor thus created, gone are many of the unions that protected the rights of workers. (1)
And the rest of us fiddled … no, played Tetris … while Rome burned.
What the man in street clothes and a surgical mask has not had extended to him he now steals. Our neglect and lethargy in addressing the problem we’ve created is coming back to haunt us.
St Pauls Hospital serves the West End, where I now live, and the Downtown East Side, where I chose to live for eight years, (3) until a cockroach ran across my nose at night. The cockroaches plus one or two attacks of bedbugs and I’d just about had it.
Many of the people down there would regard my DTES digs – modest as they were – (2) as quite satisfactory. Some would regard them as lifesaving.
What will it take to reignite the flame of caring in us and the commitment to clean things up in our world and set them right? I honestly, at this point, don’t know.
Is the Reval the answer? Throwing money at problems? I wouldn’t say completely no or completely yes.
We lightworkers have been told that we’ll be the ones to revive and rehabilitate those in so much suffering. But, after the Reval, we’ll have to study the problems.
There will then be no excuse for anyone needing to steal someone’s computer or cellphone from a hospital to buy drugs … and a happier life with little excuse to use drugs.
But I now see, from what I’m observing here, that a simple infusion of cash may not be enough.
Footnotes
(1) See “If This is Your Job, Watch Out! (1998)” at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2019/04/29/if-this-is-your-job-watch-out-1998-2/
(2) 
(3) I wanted to see how folks in the Downtown Eastside lived. And I also wanted to see what future awaited me as my income shrank in the post-retirement world.