I always see this man on my way to the gym. He sells all kind of cheap crap (pencils, small toys, sweets, etc) from his spot on a pavement. What strikes me about him every time is the apathy clearly visible in his sad eyes and crooked posture. I have never seen him sell anything and it is hard for me to imagine that anyone would really be interested in buying anything from his stock without him applying active sales techniques such as smile, eye contact, perhaps a witty slogan.
Does he have any useful skills? Probably. Does he do anything else than selling? I don’t know. Does he feel he is in control of his life? Highly doubtful.
I don’t think I will be very original here (I remember that Kapuscinski made a similar observation in one of his books), but I realised that the moment you become really poor is when you lose hope. Hope gives a direction, energy, sense of purpose; switches the light at the end of the tunnel. Lack of hope means that this light will always be perceived as the approaching train in the tunnel with no exit.
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