A dear friend was explaining her fear that she could end up on the street – however improbable.
Often attributed to (dubiously) Mark Twain:
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, most of which never happened.”
More on that in an endnote.
A dear friend was explaining his fear that he could end up on the street – however improbable that might seem. His friendship is dear to me because he exposes his vulnerability like that. Since I was just explaining consolation by flattery (“that would never happen to you; you would rise above it,” etc.), I was not about to blow rainbows up his butt.
It is true that life could deal him a bad hand in the future, and like many other improbably homeless, he could be too. So could any of us.
I didn’t have a chance to share more thoughts with him, but I would have.
I might have played a word game about the difference between “what” and “who”:
Suppose you did lose your job and your house, and could not provide for your children as you do now. What would you be then?
Is “what” you would be then, the same thing as *who* you would be then?
If you mull that over for a while, there’s nothing simple about it. The simplest truths are the deepest truths, and there’s nothing simple about them.
Mainstream culture keeps us away from deep truths. That’s why we call the homeless “the homeless.” Why we reduce a “who” to a “what.” Simpler.
A medieval knight was well-off and very accomplished, then sought a simpler aesthetic life at the entrance to a monastery. The abbott at that gate asked, “Who are you?” After the knight recites his name and credentials of piety and conquest, the abbott retreats inside without a word. The knight had confused “who” with “what.” A year later, same scene, same question. The knight gave away his wealth and served the poor. Same outcome, a silent retreat. The former knight is reduced to one of the poor he served, destitute and in despair when he returns for the same question from the abbott a third time, with no answer except, “I am nothing.”
Of course you can guess what happened, finally. But that’s only the beginning. Most of us don’t imagine further. A monk *has* nothing, but a transforming monk seeks a who, not a what.
…
I may lose my job and my house. I can see I’m more than possessions or status. But I value relationships more highly. Losing those would crush me.
Am I so sure? Let’s consider what we all know about a relationship: It takes two to tango. A partner may shed us – just as a pair of tattered jeans now worthless. A “what.” The “homeless.” See?
Like all of us, I would be devastated if loved ones distanced themselves. Which makes me wonder how I have thoughtlessly distanced myself from others, neglecting them as a task or a burden. Objectifying them: “What” they do for me, not “who” they … are.
When all is lost – yes, even my identity as I know it – I remain a “who.” In truth, perhaps the more we lose – including relationships – the more we understand our own who-ness.
This objectification of relationships is so normalized in our culture today, most of us don’t recognize we do it, nor that we in fact have relationships with things. With whats. And that slips very easily into confusion about relationships with whos. The only thing we “relate” via “social” media is our status by signaling our virtue. A what, not who. We don’t even see a distinction:
“I’m the kind of person who…” Think how easily that sort of declaration slips us into the false belief that we are hearing about a who, not a what. We are wrong. The declaration is a psychological defense – defending an identity, which is a what, not a who.
Moses explains his predicament to the burning bush: “Suppose I tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” (Exodus 3:13). The burning bush dodges the social media trap of providing a name that can be transmuted to Trump-hater or DEI-advocate. The answer given to Moses (3:14) mercifully guards us against our own fallen tendency to reduce a who to a what:
“Tell them ‘I am’ has sent you.”
Not, “I am this” or “I am that.” Because “this” and “that” are whats.
The only safe answer to the ears of us fallen folk is the verb of being. I am. Or “I am WHO I am.” Not, “I am a person who…”
Even though the word “who” is the hinge in “I am a person who…,” our fallen brains snap to objectifying the subject to an object. The voice from the burning bush was clever enough to tweak that instinct in us, to force us to pause in surprise, and perhaps understand that the speaker will not satisfy our simplicity by allowing categorization. The speaker is not a what. The speaker, is.
There’s an earlier book in that same library as the book about Moses. It says we are made in the image and likeness of I am.
Stripped of all status and identities – still – I am.
…
I appreciate that most who land on the street cannot contemplate who-ness when cold and hungry. I acknowledge my privilege. To shame me is the virtuous thing to do nowadays, lest you miss a chance to signal your virtue.
I’ll tell you how this conversation with my friend turned, anyway… How it’s related to my privileged status…
In the conversation between me and my fearful friend, another friend brought up the loss of a child. My fearful friend reacted like I would – a bit ashamed that I feared a possibility which paled by comparison. Friend #2 didn’t intend to suggest that #1’s fear was trivial or should be considered lesser in context. But our culture wires our brains for comparison irresistibly. “Ah, yes… I suppose I should be grateful that my suffering isn’t THAT bad…”
Our culture insists we be ‘woke’ and express guilt about privilege, and I understand; it’s a predictable reaction to beliefs that we have earned our privilege in a meritocracy, not inherited it undeservedly. But I have lost patience with this babbling in arrested development. If we cannot see how the D and the E of diversity and equity are contraries, I sure as hell am not gonna take that up here. You can Google how Mr. Rogers long ago taught it to us through the people from Planet Purple.
What a stale and dull world it would be if each of us were dealt the same hand.
I would not fear destitution were I immune from it. That’s the *actual* profoundity of being woke – before it gets perverted to unwelcome advocacy … by the childish privileged.
My friend #1, you were not dealt the hand of friend #2.
We can add all sorts of “not yet’s” and “if ever’s.” However, we play cards one card at a time. We each get a hand, and we each get a turn. We may for much of our lives fancy ourselves as conservative gamblers. We may think we never pushed our full pile of chips to the center of the table and went all-in. But, at our wisest, we realize we have played *every* hand that way, unbeknownst to us: We could have lost everything in *any* of those earlier hands, and we may lose everything in a later hand.
The only safe bet is not to play. But, “I am.”
======
French Twain
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, most of which never happened.”
To affirm my friend’s fear that personal ruin is a possibility, I pointed out this doesn’t read “none of which ever happened.”
French Enlightenment philosopher, Michel de Montaigne is – also doubtfully – often credited with a similar quote:
“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.”
Neither quote has been located in any of their writings. However, Montaigne did write:
“A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.”
“We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.”
“Trouble” reminded me of the third line in Shakespeare’s sonnet 29, maybe because some homeless are also bootless, or “death“ sounds so much like “deaf”:
“And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries…”
The best words for our painful mysteries come from our best wordsmiths. We can realize that they don’t actually answer life’s hard questions, but we do find a strange consolation in the way they ask them. Here’s something we might say today, followed by how the English Master put it:
When life sucks, I pity myself.
God doesn’t listen; screw him too.
Yes, I’m aware that comparing myself to influencers keeps me envious.
Yet, I forget my self-hate when, out of nowhere, I’m reminded of you. I wouldn’t trade that for any treasure chest.
Therapy might say, Practice an attitude of gratitude. Simple enough, so high-school English students wanna know why they gotta learn how the English Master put it (Sonnet 29). I do believe we force it on them foolishly, because it seems to take decades after a diploma before we appreciate some solace in no answer, but merely in the re-asking:
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
…
Neil D. 2026-10-16
