"The only shame is to have none"

~ Blaise Pascal


I experienced three types of shame at the weekend, and all very different.

The first two came really within moments of each other. I felt the shame of not fitting in with my old Uni friends. Not drinking as much, anywhere near as much, as they were. It made me feel stupid, that I couldn't or didn't want to drink like they could and did.
And then within moments I actually felt shame from being with them. But not specifically them, but with people who were plastered. In the club, the dingy and not-that-great-even-though-it's-had-another-refurb club, I saw one guy (who my friends knew) get kicked out (most likely for doing drugs). He was propelled forward out the side door by 3 or 4 bouncers, and then a minute later another one followed with the shoe he'd left behind.
And not even 5 minutes before I had stepped out of the loo to find a young girl sitting on a step having been sick all over the carpet in front of the toilets. She hadn't quite made it, and she looked awful, barely keeping herself up. And the lad that was with her didn't look like he really wanted to be there anymore.

My friend just told me how in Revolutions in Sutton they were offering free Jagerbombs for people who took off their underwear. (35 pairs were received. They applied the same offer to anyone who could bring a condom to the bar. Zero.)

So the two types of shame I felt on Saturday night has become a general shame for the youth of today. For the "wasters" who think it's okay to drink for 5 hours straight, shot after shot, strawpedo'd alcopops.
Why is this ok? Why do they not understand they are messing with their bodies, and indeed their lives? Do they know and just not care? Is life really that bad that you need to get blotto every weekend to forget it? Because life will certainly be much worse the next morning when they have a bad head and are £50 poorer.
Even though I have friends who are like this, and I love them dearly despite their abuse of the substance, it makes me despair of my generation, and the ones coming up behind us.

The other shame I felt at the weekend, came on Sunday, on the tube home. I had just managed to get a seat. I had my music in, and my book out.
And a homeless man came on the tube begging. He had a crutch too. I just heard through my music something about 'getting enough money together before London Bridge for the shelter', he was 'sorry to ask' and did we have 'any spare change or food'. And then he said 'if not, I hope you all have a safe journey' and then stood there. And of course it was the longest ride between Angel and Old Street or wherever, and then he got off the carriage and into the next one.
When he got on and started talking, the bloke next to me shifted awkwardly in his seat. That's how I realised he was in the carriage. But I only glanced at him, and then I stared at my book. I surreptitiously glanced at other people in the carriage, but no one else was looking at him. They were looking down, or out into space, anywhere but at him. I didn't see anybody get out any change. Or food. I had no food on me, but I had change. It would have only taken a minute to get it out and give him some. But I didn't. I felt ashamed of myself. The whole time he was in the carriage, and afterwards, I felt ashamed of myself still. And the carriage shared in that. There was communal shame, we were all ashamed that we weren't giving him any change or food. And in a way I think we were ashamed that our country has people who need to beg.
If we knew we would feel like that, why didn't we give him something?

Because we knew it would go away.

And it has gone away. I still do feel ashamed but nowhere near as much as when I was faced with that situation. I do sometimes give to homeless people, and buskers. But cynicism has made me do it less frequently. I walked home from York station one time and chucked some silver into a homeless man (everyone knows him, he has glasses and sort of looks like Professor Burp from Chessington World of Adventures), and a middle-aged gentleman next to me said "He'll probably earn more than you will in a day, he's got a good spot there."
Will the penny, or the 5pence, or even the pound I drop into his hat or on his blanket really go to drugs? Or alcohol? Or cigarettes? Or will they spend it on a cup of coffee to keep them warm. Or a sandwich?
Maybe this is something I need to investigate further.