Picture Christmas festivities in a downtown park. Smores and music. A storefront's large glowing quote, in bright pink neon-bulb script - "I don't know where my life is going, but I'm sure it will be an adventure!" (approx). Happy people snapping selfies in front of it. A nice sentiment. Then early morning the next day, beneath the still bright neon, a row of sleeping homeless. With an elderly woman hunched nearby, clutching a too-small blanket, shaking in the morning cold. A different take on that quote - a study in context and overlapping worlds.<p>Travel 101 guides seem to be missing a few important sections. Do-no-harm essential active listening skills, for when people keep sharing their upcoming major life choices. Responses to expressions of racism. Ethics of coping with wealth differentials: "you've found the best breakfast pastries in the region... and are now waiting for Greyhound near an impoverished family with cold hungry kids", "you've found a great one-bag packable jacket... and keep encountering people who badly need it", "a one-bag travel first aid kit... carrying food and mylar thermal blankets to give away". I like travel. But the harder parts don't seem to get bloggage.
It's truly depressing a country rich as the US has left so many of its own people in such a precarious situation.<p>I sincerely hope things improve, but I know such a deep cultural shift is very unlikely to happen in less than a couple decades.