The distribution of wealth is a global problem. We know that a few families concentrate an enormous amount of the world’s resources, while the vast majority of people are struggling to survive and trying to provide for their families.
Homelessness is probably the clearest face of this inequality, people in street situations, or as they are called in English, the “homeless”, that is to say, people without a home. Homelessness, material poverty and life put at risk every day and every night, is part of the daily life of these people who for various reasons do not have the support network or the conditions that allow them to have a home to shelter them.
This term “homeless” left me wondering about its meaning. Because we are not talking about homeless people, but about people without a home, that is to say, it is something that goes beyond an infrastructure or physical place, but it is related to the affective space that contains them. This idea of homelessness made me think of so many people who actually have a home where they live day to day, but do not have a home that provides them with a safe and loving space where they can shelter. There are probably many more of these people than those we see sleeping on the streets, so perhaps our concept of “poverty” should be expanded to include all those people who live in squalor, even in very nice places.
Loneliness is an invisible pandemic, affecting millions and millions of people, even those who are always accompanied. People who become true squatters, because they inhabit what is not their own, trying to dress in clothes that are not their own, but that allow them to deceive and deceive themselves for a while, until that time of the day or night comes when they have no choice but to face themselves, and feel the emptiness of being alone, surrounded by crumbs, perhaps full of cold hugs, of false smiles, of sheets with another name.
Those who live in that helplessness full of shells of illusion, are probably the true homeless, those who really live on handouts, those who simulate some disability to receive something from the rest, without realizing that with it they have turned their own soul into something invalid.
Therefore, we must take care of ourselves, obviously, but also of those who are close to us. Falling into loneliness is something that is just around the corner, through poor quality relationships, purposeless bonds, a life of vanity and lack of lasting and genuine affection. We must take care of ourselves, or we may end up being just another homeless person in this world.