Oil Portrait of a Young Woman

This portrait was painted in oil on wood using mostly dry brush techniques. The model was my official muse for a time. I'm not sure what happened to this painting. It disappeared from my house during a chaotic moment in my life and I have no idea where it went. Did I sell it? Did I give it to someone for safe keeping? I don't know.

I've been in a funk for the last few days but today started out much better. I caught up on sleep and hammered my latest painting into its new frame, then took a walk and grabbed a coffee at my local spot. Instead of trying to work on my day off like I usually do, I resolved to set all of my projects aside to just relax for a minute. So far, so good.

My mind has been drifting lately to the challenges many people face getting their basic needs met. I spent years unable to meet my own basic needs for medical reasons and even now live hand to mouth. So I have sympathy for those in a similar spot. Poverty is nasty business. Government services are unavailable or insufficient. People routinely blame you for circumstances beyond your control. I get that, and try to help people experiencing poverty in whatever small ways I can. This doesn't always work out.

There's a man in my city who lives in his car. I remember him from some local open mic nights many years ago. We were never friends. Actually, he acted like he was too good for me when I tried to talk to him back then. But now he lives in his car and is always asking for money in a Facebook mutual aid group I follow.

Having lived in a tent for extended periods, and lived in a car, and slept on the porches of vacant houses or in the shrubberies of commercial properties, I've learned a few tricks to make homelessness just a little bit easier. So I offered to buy this guy a coffee and share some of what I'd learned. Instead of accepting or declining, he got all pissed off. "What is wrong with you?" was his last response to my offer.

For the last few days, this individual has been asking for cannabis in the Facebook group. Today, he posted that he'll self harm if he doesn't get some cannabis. He says he's autistic, which might account for his problematic written communications. But, autistic or not, he's actively antisocial. And there's no realistic path out of poverty without social support.

Now, I'm naturally introverted. Interacting with people drains me, whereas spending time alone recharges my batteries. Living with an intense headache disorder amplifies my tendencies towards introversion. Yet life taught me early on that many needs can only be met by other people. Hostility and threats rarely convince those people to be helpful.

No one should have to go without their basic needs being met, especially in a rich country like ours. Society has an obligation to care for its members, no matter how humble their stations. Social services aren't cutting it. Neither is the nonprofit sector. So it mostly falls on individuals to create a social safety net, and we as a society are failing miserably at that.

Rampant class segregation accounts for much of this. But there's an absence of caring that's deeply embedded in the American psyche which prevents us from dealing with issues like poverty and addiction in a humane way. Although I may not like the guy who lives in his car, I care about him as a human. Same goes for the wino that's always interrupting conversations at the coffee shop.

It can be painful to care, especially when you're powerless to do more. Maybe that's why so many people avoid genuinely caring about each other. Or maybe these people are just resisting the reality that all of us are the same kind of animal, regardless of our superficial differences. Either way, I wish more people cared.