11–16 of 16 posts
The only part of this I've personally experienced is similar chicken and egg problems trying to move to new country. You can't get a apartment without an employment pass, the bureaucracy can't send you letters without an address. If you have money you can bootstrap off a lawyer or accountant's credentials otherwise there isn't always a way.
Sociality seems to have negative feedback at the edges. The height of the potential barrier is easy exceeded if you're self-sustaining and near impossible if you're not. The only part of this I've personally experienced is similar chicken and egg problems trying to move to new country. You can't get a apartment without an employment pass, the bureaucracy can't send you letters without an address. If you have money yo…
For context, he was homeless about fifteen years ago. And is still very involved in helping the homeless. My impression is you wouldn't have been able to guess that he was homeless X years ago based solely on his middle-class life now. Real bootstrapping I believe one of everyone's worst fears is to be homeless (whether acknowledged or not - I hate inevitably thinking about it whenever I see someone on the street). h…
The good thing though was that it made me feel like I could cope with anything. Homelessness reduces your horizons to "where am I going to sleep" and "how am I going to get some food" (to the point were those two things are all you think about most of the time) and having come through that I felt like I could try anything because no matter how badly it went wrong I would be ok.
For context, he was homeless about fifteen years ago. And is still very involved in helping the homeless. My impression is you wouldn't have been able to guess that he was homeless X years ago based solely on his middle-class life now. Real bootstrapping I believe one of everyone's worst fears is to be homeless (whether acknowledged or not - I hate inevitably thinking about it whenever I see someone on the street). h…
The flip side of this is that having been homeless you have nothing to fear. I had a period of homelessness in my early 20's - it was fairly self inflicted, I was burned out from the ridiculous hours in my first job and needed to escape from everything but I was already a decent programmer so I knew I could get back on the ladder - so nothing like what this guy went through. The good thing though was that it made me…