You might be judging me already.
That’s okay. Most people see the speck in someone else’s eye without noticing the log in their own.
Everyone is a humanitarian, especially behind their keyboard. But before you decide what kind of person I am, understand this: people who have seen very little are often quick to judge people who have seen too much. And people who have seen too much tend to carry their compassion differently — because they’ve trained themselves to recognize patterns through cyclical traumas.
This is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. I’m not claiming moral superiority; not any more than your moral absolutism, at least. I’ll be the first to tell you I’m wrong (to an extent) for my perspective. But there is a reason why I wrestle with what I wrestle with.
Those of you who’ve read Getting A Girlfriend Was A Great Idea know that trust is an area I’ve been getting redeemed from.
Repeated exposure to manipulation has sharpened my caution into instinct. I’ve been a fly on the wall long enough to witness that desperation is not always what it presents itself to be.
This is why I struggle with helping the less fortunate.
So before you persecute me, sit with me. Let me explain how I got here.
It Starts With My Grandma
I watched her beg my entire life.
Often in circumstances where she did not actually need money.
I’ve seen her break down crying at the flip of a switch, telling elaborate narratives about how she needed twenty dollars right now. I’ve seen her repeat the performance over and over again to dozens of people back to back, extracting money successfully from every single one.
Some people gave her more than she asked for.
Who wouldn’t? She was a sad old lady who needed your help.
My grandma would also brag about taking my dog for walks, telling strangers he was starving and needed money to feed him.
Mind you, that dog ate better than everyone in the house.
But to the average passerby, none of that matters. What matters is the image (a cute starving puppy, and a helpless old lady), and the emotion it pulls out of them.
Experiences like this made me realize that desperation can be performed.
I learned this up close from someone I loved. Someone who hugged me, cooked for me, took me on adventures, and protected me from mom when she wanted to give me a beating.
This is a confusing and uncomfortable truth to learn at a young age. It teaches you that tears don’t always mean truth. That a person can be deserving of your love and capable of manipulation.
When you grow up inside that dichotomy you become numb to stories.
Everything Seems Like Fiction
Once you learn to spot it at home, you start to see it everywhere else.
You ever discover a new favorite car model? Then all of a sudden you start seeing that same car everywhere?
The cars were always there. You just didn’t have the eyes for them yet.
That’s how beggars are to me.
I’ve been on train rides where two homeless men accidentally bumped into each other on the same cart. They shook hands, persiflated, sat down across from me, and started talking like coworkers on a lunch break. I overheard them discussing their routes — which carts were better at which times, and how many stops they needed to hit before they could call it a day.
One of them said he only needed to do a few carts to make about fifty dollars in 30 minutes, during rush hour. Enough to get lunch and disappear for the rest of the day.
When I overhear things like that, it doesn’t sound like desperation. It sounds like logistics. They know their market and how many numbers they need to go through to get a desired result.
I’ve also been on train carts where a man steps on, delivers the most eye-watering performance you could ever see: mom sick, dog dead, nowhere to sleep, been hungry for days. And everyone reaches in their pockets with softened faces, ready to help someone who’s been down on their luck.
Then I watched the same man get off at my stop and walk with me back to my building, to his apartment.
As if homelessness had a timesheet. As if it clocked out the moment the cart doors closed behind him.
After a while, you stop listening to words. Everything sounds like noise.
Psychoanalyzing Moral Complexity
I’m aware there are probably people out there who genuinely need help, and I’m unwilling to ever help them.
I’m aware of what this makes me sound like.
But like I said before, I’m not claiming moral superiority. This was never an argument about having the “right” point of view. Moral absolutists tend to read into everything with that lens. This is meant to shine a light on moral complexity — on the fact that things aren’t as cookie-cutter as we’d like them to be.
What started as discernment for me, over time solidified itself into refusal. Part of me feels justified in that because of phenomena and repetition. The other part of me knows I don’t occupy a neutral stance.
This outlook protects me, it’s my shield. But it also distances me.
I’ve learned to say “no” without flinching.
What I’m still trying to learn is if this makes me wise…
or just closed off?
I don’t have a precise answer.
I just know how I got here.
📍 Here
I do my best not to strawman my personal journey into sweeping generalities.
Phenomena doesn’t collapse neatly into ideals.
But at the same time I can’t refute the fact that my suspicion was cultivated through phenomenology. I didn’t choose cynicism because it felt like the more intellectually sound route to go. I learned it. That training is what made me careful.
And care, when learned in this particular way, doesn’t come off as generosity.
It creates distance and chooses self-preservation above incertitude.
I’m not proud of it. But I’m not ashamed of it either.
Maybe this will change. Maybe it won’t. But pretending I’m somewhere else wouldn’t be realistic.
This is simply where I’m at right now, 📍 Here.
Author’s Note
These ruminations sit near this essay conceptually, not thematically:
Philosophically, this thought sits near what’s often described as moral particularism — the view that moral judgment is shaped by context and pattern rather than fixed rules.
Give us a piece of your noggin