Sunday #14: Never Give Up

I have taken up the habit of going on early morning walks around Hollywood during the time when the sun is just starting to peek over the horizon, but most people have not yet begun to peek over their bedcovers. It is a glorious activity, as far as Hollywood can still be glorious, because the quiet that I experience at that time of day allows me to notice beauty hiding behind the decay. 

Sunday morning walks are somewhat different from weekday walks, simply because it is quieter than usual. For those of us who sometimes "struggle" with public interaction, a city is most appealing when it is empty. This is why I find myself having mixed feelings about the world opening up again--for a short while I have greatly enjoyed having the streets to myself, more or less. 

Of course I am never completely alone, as there are people out and about in Hollywood at all hours, regardless of anything else that is going on. They generally tend to themselves, and allow me to tend to myself. Think of driving on a long, lone desert highway, and someone passing by you from the opposite direction. There is the briefest of acknowledgements to a fellow explorer, with the hidden caveat that you wish they weren't there at all. But you accept it--fellow explorers are a natural part of the exploration process, and because each one offers an unknown story to ponder. 

***

On the day that I write this, I took my walk along familiar streets--I have favorite routes that I revisit over and over--because there is always something new to see, even in that which has already been seen. As I walked south to Hollywood Blvd., I noticed a person sleeping on the sidewalk next to a car. This was not an unusual site, but as I passed the person I found myself stopping to look back, because something struck me as unusual. 

The person was a young man in decent-looking clothing, and he was devoid of the coating of black grime that covers many of the homeless. Also, unlike the homeless, he was not covered by a blanket or inside a sleeping bag, he was just lying on the sidewalk as though he were lounging on a divan. On top of the car that he was sleeping next to was a backpack and two oranges. Good, I thought, he likes oranges! Because we all know that eating whole oranges is better than drinking the juice. Leaning against the car was a small bicycle, the kind that is favored by young men who use them to zip to and fro without the weight of a larger bike. 

It struck me as odd that all of these things I noticed were undisturbed, because, well, Hollywood, but that is perhaps due to location rather than luck. It is often easiest to hide in plain site. I remember how one time I left my apartment door wide open when I left for work, only to discover upon returning home that nobody had violated the space--not because they were being respectful, but because an open door gives the signal that someone is home. It can be a better deterrent to theft than an alarm system! 

Anyway, for whatever reason, this young man was left peacefully to sleep off whatever it was that he needed to sleep off. I hope that, after I left him, his situation remained so. Who among us doesn't benefit from good uninterrupted sleep?

***

Throughout my life I have never completely "given up", though at times I have been very tempted to do so. At these times, I was usually in a great deal of emotional pain, accompanied by the feeling that my firm footing had been abruptly pulled out from underneath me. The resulting experience was always one of falling, not to my death, but to further falling, a never-ending falling, the type of falling that does not allow one to either relax into it or look forward to its conclusion. Without exception, I would eventually find my footing, either through surrender (not the same thing as giving up!), or resilience (creating a foothold with sheer will), or relationship (grabbing an outstretched hand). 

Choosing from amongst these options has allowed me to rely less on firm footing for stability, and consequently, I have learned to walk through life with more ease and confidence rather than less, welcoming career, friendships, and relationship with the willingness of one who accepts the possibility of also losing them. Giving up has not been one of my chosen options because there is no life in giving up, those who give up are either the living-dead or the dead-dead. For me, living in pain is preferable to not living at all. 

I don't know if the young man sleeping on the street had given up, or merely surrendered to sleep after a hard night in Hollywood. I don't know if he had firm footing, or relationship, or any hands outstretched in his direction. I do suspect that, instead of being broken, he was merely taking a break, as evidenced by his relative cleanliness and the two oranges awaiting him by his backpack. At least that is what I hope. He is too young to be giving up, in my opinion, but then what is an appropriate age to do so? 

I can say with confidence that he had no awareness of me stopping to look back at him, nor will he have any memory of me walking by, and he certainly cannot know that I am sitting here writing about him now. But I would hope that, were I ever to find myself sleeping on the street after a hard night, that any passersby would simply leave me in peace, as was my intention with this young man. I could have taken the oranges, I could have taken the backpack, I could have taken his bike. But I didn't, because that to me would have been a sign that I had given up.

And I have never given up. 

***

Hopelessness, as defined in my therapeutic work, is not a feeling, but instead a solution. One might call it a final solution, as it implies that there is nothing to be done. I have found that in all cases, there is always something to be done, but access to this perspective relies on a few things:

1. exposure to options

2. a reason to choose from these options

3. a measure of support, no matter how small, from somewhere or something

Those who have given up often have none of the above, or they have lost it if they once did. I have been fortunate enough to have these three things available to me for as long as I can remember, and this is what has made falling preferable to giving up. Hope is often defined as the belief that things will get better, but I like to think of hope as the reason why one would even hold the belief that things will get better. In other words, things getting better is not the goal, but rather the result of having a reason to live. Things getting better is the celebration of that discovery, because having a reason to live often automatically makes things a little bit better. At least that is my story and I am sticking to it. 

My sense of the young man on the street is that he has not given up, that he has a reason to live, that perhaps he just found himself falling after a night of bad decisions. I came to that conclusion because of the two oranges on the car next to his backpack. He set out a healthy treat for when he awakens, making sure to put them up off of the sidewalk where they would be more secure. This suggests that he has a reason to get up off the sidewalk and forge on, whatever that reason may be. I hope, for his sake, that the oranges are still there when he wakes up.