Ronald Davis

The video I watched today struck my core in a way no emotion-inducing event has before. I can't remember the last time I felt so sad.

3:12 PM ckswong008: that link is sad

3:13 PM me: i started crying at work

 ckswong008: lol shut up

 me: i did

3:14 PM ckswong008: reminds me of those project angel food

  and this volunteering thing i did at pasadena

  its crazy how different it can be

  maybe all he needed

  was a shower

  one set of nice clothes

  and he would be on his way

  to getting a night shift job

3:15 PM me: it's so true

  how can they move up in the system when everything is working against them?

3:16 PM even "nice, regular" people, like our friends

  treat them as invisible

  i was thinking, do i look a homeless person in the eye when i give them something?

  it's like homeless people are seen as 2nd class/less-than-human in the eyes of mainstream society

3:17 PM ckswong008: in all societies

 me: they are deprived of many things but the most important thing they are deprived of

  is dignity

3:18 PM ckswong008: its easy for ppl who has always been spoon fed

  to ignore the tough times these less fortunate people go through

  because they cant even fathom in their perfect little life

3:19 PM whats it like to have nothing

 me: yes you can tell just by reading FB

  "i killed a spider today"

3:20 PM "look at these flowers my bf got me"

  random shot of food

  so absorbed in their own puny circles and nothing beyond themselves

3:21 PM ckswong008: yeah

  its sad

3:22 PM its also the perception

  of them being lazy and self inflicted

  ppl have never interacted with them

  its easy to assume that they are just purposely living that way

  theres gotta be menial labor jobs around

  at least

3:23 PM theres gotta be some structural changes

  but the problem is that

  homelessnes has always been aroundme: that form of existence is nothing a decent human should ever experience, yet it happens around us all the time

  we live among it

3:36 PM i don't know which is more sad

  the form of existence

  or our apathy

 ckswong008: apathy

  is the worst

Talking About Myself

I feel like I've spent a good part of this weekend meeting new people and talking about myself. Talking about yourself consecutively about the superficial, factual aspects of your life kind of makes you feel like a broken record after a while. I live in South San Francisco, I moved to the Bay area for work, I'm originally from LA, I work in IT, I live with my sister, etc etc.

Through this exercise, I realized I'm kind of boring. I haven't been to many far-flung exotic places, I haven't gotten a PhD in anything, I don't have an extreme hobby that would make people go ooh, nor do I have great/fun/exciting/interesting stories to tell about myself. After all the introduction hoopla, I find myself kind of just settling back and letting others take the driver's seat in terms of steering the conversation. I do discover that whenever I have a conversation with others who I've just met or don't know so well, I ask them a lot of questions. I think it's a way for me to discover facts and commonalities about the other person I can latch onto and keep the conversation going with, and then I find out a lot about them during the process.

So do people end up not really knowing me well? Is that possible, to "know" someone, after one conversation? I suppose I don't mind people not knowing much about me, but I like learning about others. In the delicate dance that we call conversation, I suppose I'm content with being led, as it's the best way to learn the dance quickly and be able to complement my partner's moves as we sashay back and forth.