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This was going to be a comment response under the last post, but who reads those after the first time they post a comment anyway . . so here it is (responding to Joanne and then JustinVK):

I think the idea is that "captured" and "homeless" are more or less opposed to one another. (Right?) Maybe homelessness is really the path that everyone should be walking--speaking of "amazing people," a lot of them seem to lead pretty lonely existences (influential/brilliant philosophers, prophets, artists, etc.), and if everyone aspired to that, maybe we wouldn't be as messed up as we are as a society. Maybe if we all had the guts to be lonely--in that existential way--we'd cease to be so. Then again, I'm not doing so well with it. And I don't want to tell happy people that they shouldn't be happy. On one hand I'm sick of systems of thought that put a salve on fear and uncertainty at the expense of integrity (intellectual? emotional?) and on the other hand I guess I'm complaining about the lack of certainty and stability when the salve isn't there.

Justin, I'm not sure what an amazing person is, I'm just making the generalization about amazing people when looking at the crazy lives of ones like Hemingway, Dostoyevsky (the two examples I use way too often), Van Gogh . . heck, what about someone like James Klaver? He was cool before cancer, but afterwards I feel he had some truly amazing qualities. I guess there are people who don't have to go through all kinds of stuff to come out the other end wiser and better. But I doubt I'm one of them, and I doubt most people are ones of themses.

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I find connecting with people very difficult due mainly to my own limitations. The other day my car battery was dead and I was musing about how to get cables and another car to charge; none of my closeby friends were answering their phones. My new roommate Chris said I should just walk around the neighborhood and ask. I said that sounded awkward. He said just do it, it's easy. So I did. It took about 20 minutes, but I found an old Puerto Rican mechanic who lent me the cables and shortly thereafter another guy watering his lawn who jumped my car with me. The former reluctantly parted with the cables because he'd had a pair not returned before. But after I returned them and noticed that he was sort of partying with his family in honor of Puerto Rico week in the USA, he offered me a beer and I ended up talking with him and his buddy about Puerto Rico, PR day, and living in Logan Square for a while. In fact, I could have stayed all afternoon and drank beer and celebrated with them. Naturally, I had Stuff to do. But it was so wonderful to stand in this man's garage for a short while and talk while his middle-aged daughter drunkenly danced some PR dance and kids climbed on and off of laps and other people looked on. So easy and yet something I never, ever do. Except the other day.