“I am not so much the pebble dropping in the pond as I am the ripples that follow.” – Miles Levin

There are very few times where words on a page literally make me stop what I’m doing and pause. It’s as if there exists an icicle hanging from a lonely rooftop, and a drop of water travels from the apex of the roof down to the tip of the icicle, and right before it is about it is about to plummet to the ground below it freezes. When we read words on a page, or, perhaps less romantically, on a computer screen, there exists a fluid motion of consciousness, traveling deeper and deeper until we become lost in the trajectory. Miles’ blog is one that have read completely, soup to nuts, several times, and I would advise anyone who has the opportunity to block off 45 minutes of their day to do the same (reading one to two entries at a time is doing the blog injustice, you must read it in its entirety in one sitting – although you must sign up to read it).

Among the gems hidden in this magnum opus is the aforementioned quote, “I am not so much the pebble dropping as I am the ripples that follow.” In the context of the blog entry, the author was referring to the separation between the soul and the body. This discrepancy can never be as clear as when one is faced with some sort of illness. Having a healthy mind, coupled with a declining state of the body is awkward, and more significantly, horribly tragic. But there are other interpretations of this line.

I tend to take the same walking route to school every morning, which allows me to pick up my copy of The New York Times, my wheat bagel from Le Basket, and some fresh-squeezed orange juice from a street vendor named Alfonso. Standing at the intersection between Lafayette and East 3rd Street every day is a homeless man, which for clarity sake, I will refer to as Keith. Keith, a panhandler, bears no witty sign (i.e., “I breathe. That deserves a tip.”), no cute puppy dog acting as a lure to animal lovers fearing the poor pooch will go hungry unless you empty your pockets of loose change. More importantly, Keith further distinguishes himself from other homeless men by a few of this personality traits: he is polite, well-spoken, and seemingly intelligent.

On many an occasion, while waiting for the friendly “good time to cross” pedestrian signal to give me the go-ahead, I have struck up a conversation with Keith. Usually, seeing my Times tucked under my arm, Keith will make some droll or scintillating remark about a current event, from the Blackwater scandal to the C.I.A. using waterboarding as a form of interrogation, and (my personal favorite) anti-Hillary remarks, which are usually spot-on. Unlike most homeless men, whom when I pass usually make some sort of salacious remark, Keith asks me what I’m studying in school, or who my all-time favorite American president is. He always follows up with the good natured “Have a nice day, lady,” which under other circumstances might make my skin crawl, but from Keith it actually justifies the occasional smile.

A few humorous moments have emerged from my interactions with Keith. At my favorite “on-the-go” bagel stop, Le Basket, there is always a sale on the “Bagel of the Week,” in which one can purchase six bagels and get an additional six free. It looks like a great idea on paper, and I am always tempted to indulge, but I always talk myself out of it by recognizing that I could never burn through twelve bagels before they begin making my 15-foot shoe-box of a living situation smell like moldy yeast. However, on one particular day about a month ago, I had a pleasant encounter with Keith and decided to capitalize on the bagel liquidation by sharing with him. After making this decision, I stepped outside to ask Keith whether he liked cinnamon raisin bagels or whole grain.

“Bagels?” Keith asked. “Who eats that sh–? If you really want to make my day, buy me a gallon of orange juice, and not with that nasty pulp. Pulpless orange juice!”

Oh well. I ended up buying him the orange juice regardless. I had always believed beggars couldn’t be choosers (literally, in this case), but I guess I was wrong. So it goes.

I don’t think Keith ever forgot about that incident though. A few days later, caught in a horrible rainstorm, and without so much as a garbage bag to keep a half semester’s worth of notes dry, I passed Keith walking home and the strangest thing happened. Abandoning his earnings for the day, Keith ran over to me with an umbrella and insisted that he walk me home (several blocks away). I was caught off guard; it was more than just a polite gesture. It showed that he remembered me, that he wasn’t above a simply act of kindness.

Yes, Keith is homeless (I have no idea as to how that came to be), a quality that may force some to see the world in a bleak and defeating manner. But I can assure you that Keith is in fact happier than many middle class people that I run in circles with, simply because he does not see his limitations as defining.

We all have limitations, and we would all love to believe that our lives are worse off than the vast majority of everyone else. That is human nature. But what we don’t realize is that there is always someone out there who has greater obstacles and harsher limitations. Everything is relative to how we see it. We are all constantly battling to fight those waves that keep crashing against us. Sometimes we are simply treading the water, and sometimes we get sucked under, but we do eventually claw our way to the top again, and in these moments (albeit brief and difficult to realize at times), all is right with the world.

I very much believe that it is possible for a homeless man to be as satisfied and content with the world as I am, a middle class girl with a (hopefully) bright future. Perspective is everything. It is our catalyst, and it is our threshold.

It is not naturally to be at all satisfied with our current state in life. We always want more, [think we] need more, fantasize about more. It is a true gift to find that balance between striving for better and finding happiness with the “right now.” Perhaps such a balance doesn’t exist, although I’d like to think it does. It is something that I struggle with everyday, but when I find people like Keith and Miles in the world, I realize that, sometimes, quality of life shouldn’t be a function of the Who’s and the What’s and the Where’s. Maybe it’s all in our heads, after all.

So tomorrow, I will try something new. Rather than think of myself as a part of a interdependent system of other people (classmates, family, friends, etc.) and places, I’m just going to understand what it means to be one person in a world full of beauty. Tomorrow, I will be the ripples.