Surviving The Fall, 33

I have insomnia again, Gentle Reader, which is to say that after just around four hours of deep sleep I am sitting here in front of my laptop and it is 2:44 am. I have had my shower, made my bed, cleaned my apartment (quietly. I have neighbours) made orange juice and done my devotional readings. I am skipping coffee this morning since I want to be able to easily get back to sleep, which will likely happen in the next hour or so, probably after breakfast. I am listening to the predawn documentaries on CBC Radio One, borrowed from BBC, Australia, the European Union and the US. So far, I have listened to the difficulties of being an out gay man in South Korea, especially in the strongly influential Christian Evangelical circles; the horrors of the Trump Administration; and now the idea of charity shopping for luxury goods with the proceeds going to the less fortunate overseas. Uh-huh. Here we are digesting the little dose of guilt we have been fed by the news of a seventy something year old man who died while seated at a table in a local Tim Hortons, homeless for many years and socially isolated. We wonder how this can happen and it happens. In a wealthy city in a wealthy country. We ignore one another, chronically. Not all of us and not all the time. I think that our vicious capitalist system plays a huge role in keeping us so focussed on struggling to stay employed and to chase after chimerical dreams of consumer joy and earthly bliss that we are not going to have a lot of energy, or interest, left over for the less fortunate. and we are going to be so sated and brainwashed on the usual pap from pop culture that our sense of reality is going to be badly distorted as we continue to seek and embrace those illusions of becoming gorgeous little pop-gods. We are that pathetic. And we don't need to be. I believe that we are naturally empathetic but there are so many obstacles against developing this essential feature of our humanity, especially in our mad stampede of greed and self-actualization. Not much is known about this man, Ted, but he did work hard all his life and did not end up owning his own multimillion dollar home in Vancouver's West Side. He is one of the many hard-working Canadians for whom the pay off commonly dangled as a gold-plated carrot on the stick, never happens, all the low-hanging fruit has been picked and we get...nothing. I am so sick of the stupid propaganda that gets vomited in my face day after day by mouth-breathing idiots who have never learned how to think, nor how to love, nor how to reach out to those who don't live inside their little pink and green bubble. I am also frightened and upset at the thought that my fate could so easily become Ted's fate, but for the blessing of living in the scarce government subsidized housing that ought to be universally available to those who will always gag on the Canadian Dream, or rather, we are the ones who will stick in its craw because we simply do not have what it takes to succeed in Capitalist Nirvana, and the response will be simply to regurgitate us into the gutter for the waiting crows and rats to dine on. Time for breakfast. now the documentary is about electric cars and the importance of reducing our carbon footprint. So, Gentle Reader, here is our Riddle de Jour: What are some good, practical and common-sensical ways of reconciling our reduced carbon footprint with the way we treat the poorest and most vulnerable people who live among us?