HEROES: To help save this world, we need EVERY HERO we can get & 211

First posted: 7/1/12

EIGHT THINGS WORTH REMEMBERING 

ABOUT THREE LITTLE NUMBERS
2-1-1
HELP For Self, Friends, Strangers, ANY FELLOW HUMAN In CRISES!  
Not just the homeless.... ANYONE!

A reasonable way to overcome this life's greatest injustices and profoundest pain is by settling the smaller, more manageable, miseries that comprise them ... once and for all... non-stop... till there's nothing left to do.  The generations (present, future and, in a sense, past) are counting on US!!

1.  THERE'S A GOOD CHANCE YOU DIDN'T KNOW (AND IT COULDN'T BE SIMPLER)
that if you tell homeless people (or anyone in need - anyone in crises) to call "211" -- from most any place in our nation -- you are also telling them exactly where to find the nearest free CLEAN:

• water, 
• food, 
• shelter, 
• clothing, 
• warmth and light, 
• safety and security,
• information, knowledge, and ideas, 
• skilled counseling and support,
• other barest necessities for achieving normalcy in this life, 
• finally, some realistic first and second chances,
• AND adoption into the system -- on the way to their permanent rescue.
• NICE, HUH? Souls are worth saving. We all know this.  Now we have another practical tool to help get the job done.
• This is an exciting find; comments (below) from those in the know (and, of course, others), most welcome; the 211-network can use as much material assistance as it can get -- for resources are surely limited; but this is a re-start and a re-awakening; long may it last, till it's no longer necessary.)
• Along that line, if you are so moved, you can make one-time or recurring donations to Contra Costa County's 211 service (see their site).  Or, if you live elsewhere in the Bay Area, see this site.  Google will lead you to the rest of them.

PLEASE SPREAD THIS WORD, FAR AND WIDE, ACROSS THE ENTIRE NATION, EVEN -- and, if you can give the homeless (or others in crises) nothing else, give them this!!

If you're in your car, with no time to stop, you might (if safe) even shout something like: "Call 211, they'll help, big-time."  It may take repetition from many of us, for it to really sink in.  Fortunately, many (but certainly not all) of our unfortunate friends (and future friends) can get to cell phones.  And, as you'll soon see, even the lack of a cell phone is "fixable."

"211" IS ALSO A NUMBER THAT CAN ASSIST ANY ONE OF US IN TIMES OF AREA-WIDE DISASTERS!!!

2.  IF YOU LOOK
about 1/3 of the way down the "Quick Access" page (elsewhere on this blog), you'll see some more pertinent details. ALSO, PLEASE SEE THIS BLOG's ARTICLE, ENTITLED "From the Crises Line/211 Director."

3.  ANYONE AT ALL 
might need something from the various forms of assistance available at 211 and is welcome to it. Truly, there is much magnificence to be found in the human spirit (and on the other side of that phone number).

4.  THAT "QUICK ACCESS" PAGE
also explains about the availability of FREE CELL PHONES (along with necessary services) for those in need.  These mobile phones are no longer a "luxury" -- they are indispensable. PUBLIC PAY PHONES ARE VITUALLY NON-EXISTENT, NOW.  How can we save anyone, if they can't connect with us -- and us with them?

5.  THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS; A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH for individuals and well-being for the rest of us.  

• And all of this, very reasonably, promises a favorable chain-reactive effect on other social illnesses.  

• There are many social ills that will never be fully resolved until this one is.  WE CAN FIX THIS.  Never have we had such an intelligent, tightly-connected human network as we now have.  AND, SINCE WE CAN FIX IT, WE MUST.  Anything less wouldn't be what we pride ourselves in being -- HUMAN.

• We are wasting enormous resources in at least three massively harmful ways: (1) the human material that never gets enough chances to prove its worth; (2) the increased social costs necessary to sustain the unproductive weight; and (3) the unknowable, but certain, opportunity costs of unrealized human potential.  How many "Einsteins," "Michealangelos," and "Mozarts" are we losing, every second?

6.  PEOPLE SIMPLY MUST STAY FULLY CONNECTED  with at least the most basic of our human sub-networks or they are DOOMED "lost souls," destined to perish, untimely and largely unnoticed, at the hands of a complicated, brutal, uncaring world (as it surely must seem, when connections to it are faulty or non-existent).  

7.  People just can't prosper without other people -- nor are they likely to survive as long as they could have.  So, if you're not connected with the rest of us, you are in, perhaps, the worst possible human situation (and escape is inconceivable, without a lot of help).  Quite likely, if you are in this condition, you are constantly:

• Isolated and alone, no reliably stable place to keep life organized and secure for a safe, productive existence in a dangerous, stingy-seeming world.  No sure way to bounce back from life's heavy blows.
• Tormented by the desire for things one can never hope to have and by all the heart-breaking evidence of a better life, always out of reach. 
• Subject to bullying and unrequited criminal abuse, from which there is little escape.  Injustices small and large abound.
• Unable to reliably produce anything that yields even close to a fair day's wage.  Good feelings of self-worth, forever denied. 
• Unable to reliably promise to one's children and spouse and other kin or fellow human beings ANYTHING GOOD.  
• Always feeling like so much debris, cluttering up life's playing fields.  
• Looked down upon as so much trash.  Nothing to point to, with pride.  
• Ridiculed and insulted, more often than not.  Never taken seriously.  Shunned like pestilence.  Every door closed.  Rudeness unbridled.
• Movements restricted to the radius in which one has energy to walk -- limited by how far one is willing to distance himself from his scant possessions.  Or hers.   
• Living from a grocery cart -- sleeping on any horizontal surface or on the move or vertically.  
• Much darkness. Much filth.  The beauty of life hidden -- never to be known or fully appreciated.
• No certainty as to the timing (or occurrence) of the next wholesome meal, or the smell of clean air, or the feel of peaceful slumber, or .... 

8.  THERE, BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, GO I
Yes, the outlooks are dim, indeed, for those poor, unhappy souls -- until enough "compassion-power" is fully applied.  No one should ever miss out on the basic joys of a good life -- to anxiously await erasure from a horrid world -- glad to leave. 

Certainly, even the meanest among us is often spared all the misery and suffering possible. What, then, about the innocent?  The victims of something over which they have so very little control?  The extremely unlucky? Perhaps those not very well-equipped for this complex world?  Perhaps the sadly, badly mistaken; un-informed as to how to best proceed -- no one to tell or show them -- no sufficiently "productive-life-model" nearby or available long enough to understand and copy?  Failed, perhaps, by one's own family limitations.  People who lack the security and stability of a personal support system to allow them to make (and recover from) mistakes? (They pay a heavy price for their errors.) And, of course, the mentally or physically ill or deprived.

• If we put ourselves into those smelly, worn-out, old, occasionally available shoes, it becomes very easy to want to do something about it, yes?

• It could have easily been any one of us crushed by similar misfortune.  Just by a slender margin of chance good fortune, we were not.  A coin toss. I imagine anyone in their situation would see a world of things and experiences they can never have and feel profoundest sorrow over the cruelest of fates which entraps them.

• They need heroes to come to the rescue! NOW, not later!  We all do.  We would surely want that, were we in those saddest of shoes -- suffering such misery, in a bountiful land, largely because, first, they didn't have the information or guidance -- and second, some shortage of persistent (even heroic) and cheerful moral and material support.  But then, we are a nation of heroes -- a whole world of them -- once enough candles light the dark corners so we can all see what needs doing.

• HOW VERY SAD THE PRESENT CASE IS -- BUT NOW, THERE IS GREATER HOPE -- if we share three simple little numbers -- and do the other needful things.  We're talking about a very sound investment in the future of our entire species -- the return on investment will be enormous -- AND THAT'S UNDENIABLE!

End of sermon --  If this is a sermon, it's also a sermon to myself.  For life sometimes makes me forget that this is going on, right now -- and needs regular attention.  Must not forget that many are enduring these very horrors, this very instant -- and will continue until we have fixed this.  Who else is going to?  Who else can, better than we?  

With the advent of the internet and other technologies (like cellular telephony) -- and the new level of public consciousness these help us nurture -- the chances have never been better -- in all of human history -- to spread freedom from such bitter want, which has stolen so much from human destiny.

David Nelson

"The life you save may eventually be your own"

PLEASE PASS THE WORD, FAR AND WIDE (I know you will -- and, if enough of us do this, perhaps our net will save them all)

SPEAK THREE LITTLE NUMBERS AND CHANGE THE WORLD!!!

FOR MORE DETAILS, ALSO SEE THIS BLOG ARTICLE, ENTITLED "From the Crises Line/211 Director" AND THE "Quick Access" PAGE

Tag: "Homelessness," "Human Crises," "Philosophy," "MENTOR"