Walking Down Madison, by Kirsty MacColl. It popped in my head this morning.
That’s a reminder to be careful about what you put in your head.
Yeah, true. But hear me out.
The song came to mind as I was thinking of Nassim Taleb’s idea about time as the filter that determines quality. Not time itself, of course, but the passage of time that exposes an idea (typically) to repeated stresses. Survival is an indicator of truth.
An idea that breaks under stresses is a bad idea, and an idea that survives repeated stresses is likely to be a good idea. We can’t know with certainty, because it might break under a future stress.
So the song came to mind. Hah. Because there is no connection between the two thoughts.
From the sharks in the penthouse to the rats in the basement
It’s not that far
Walking Down Madison
A momentary snapshot in time. We see it. We feel it.
But facing the individual exemplar, and what I do about it? That’s the trick.
See you give ’em your nickels, your pennies and dimes
But you can’t give ’em hope in these mercenary times, oh no
And you feel real guilty about the coat on your back
And the sandwich you had, oh no
Maybe it’s time to remember B’s admonition. If you see a bum, the important thing is that you noticed (just like Kirsty MacColl). What you do next matters to you, not to the bum. Give nothing or a quarter or $20. It doesn’t matter except that you did something recognizing what you noticed. “
It doesn’t matter” is an overstatement of course. Your money makes a difference to the person you see.
But the vital thing is that your consciousness saw something. What are you going to do about what your consciousness observed? Is your life important to you?
B would say it’s not your job to give away all your money. It’s not your job to solve the problem of homelessness singlehandedly. Giving some money would, though, be a signal to your mind, acknowledging and interacting with a reality. And that is your job. God put this in front of you for a reason. You saw it. Now what are you going to do?
“If you see a toothpick on the floor, pick it up.”