Aude amare et somniare et scire.

-Ellen Goodman

Man surprises me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.

-Dalai Lama 

Too many people spend money they earned.. to buy things they don’t want.. to impress people they don’t like. 

We have the opportunity to learn a thousand years of mathematics in a single semester. We can pick up a biography and vicariously experience a lifetime of mistakes and their lessons. And should we ever need to know how many ounces are in an liter, we simply can google it. 

Consider for a moment that we’ve been handed opportunity on a silver platter. Then realize it’s true. 

So many of us see a road made of gold - of potential - and treat it like a marathon that isn’t quite worth running. We push ourselves to the bare minimum, occasionally sprinting, and yet always taking the time to compare our position to those that run beside us. We envy those who run ahead and look disparagingly at those who fall behind. 

Money is the world’s largest commodity and a vehicle for purchasing power. Given that only 2% of the US population lives on farms, the other 98% rely on a piece of paper to access our most basic needs. Economically, it makes sense. If we were all farmers, who'd make an iPhone?

Living in New York has surrounded me with people that live in the top 1% of our income brackets. And one day, I found myself looking up to them. I began to attribute wealth with intelligence, aptitude, and character. I thought to myself, “I need to follow the money. If I surround myself with the world’s smartest and most successful men, maybe one day I can be one too.”

Yeah, right. 

I spontaneously decided to embark on an outing. I walked 20 blocks, put out a Starbucks cup, and spent the night on a bench. I’ve always had the fortune of living under a roof, and for the first time, I wanted to experience homelessness. 

I wish I could look back and say it was a serendipitous character building experience. It wasn’t. I made a personal commitment to stay out for at least 24 hours; I only made it through 14.

Surrounded by mounds of snow, I picked a somewhat warm corner in the West Village. After easing into the ground, I held up my cup and silently shadowed the hundreds of people that walked by. Eventually, it became too cold to keep my head up. I set the cup on the ground and burrowed my face into my jacket. As hours ticked by, I started to crave eye-contact – any sort of empathy really. But the way I sat, my proximity to the cup, told a story that received curt replies of pity, disgust, and chilling apathy. I had become a nobody and I was too cold to care.

My invisibility turned my attention inwards. In a growing blend of self-pity and anger, I adopted a crude and rigid fetal position. I only looked up at the occasional sound of clinking coins – the cold sound of loose change clanking against the little I had. I didn’t reciprocate; I couldn’t muster up a smile; I didn’t say thank you.

Towards the end the day, I looked for an empty bench. I slept outside and found myself waking up repeatedly in a strange mix of confusion, fear, and determination. But I couldn’t make it. I walked back to my dorm and looked up. It was only 10pm - much earlier than I had planned. I stepped into the warmest shower of my life and walked to the school cafeteria for food. I woke up the next day – no epiphanies, no mind-blowing realizations. Life just went on. 

I write this today because I walked by a homeless man yesterday. I glanced over, avoided eye-contact, and noticed he wasn’t wearing any gloves. Apparently I’m too busy now, so I just kept on walking. He must have been freezing and his coat looked thin. 

YouTube uploads three days of video content per minute. In that same minute, Google runs 2 million search queries, Twitter sends 300,000 tweets, and Facebook handles 3,000 new photos.

It's amazing - abundance at its finest. So much so that gathering knowledge has become synonymous with filtering it.