We often believe that these individuals are those whom life has destroyed—who have lost everything, from riches to love, from fame to glory—and now find themselves on cobbled roads, with stained stone as their pillows.

Who is this individual we pass by everyday?

Who is this ghost of our lives that doesn’t choose to haunt us, yet whose appearance charges us with fear?

I want to unravel this individual's worldly life and their outlook on humanity from the vantage point of one who exists on the literal edge of the modern, flowing world. Their eyes tell the story of our life—the life we ourselves remain unaware of, the life of our reflections, which we are instructed to ignore and often forget in order to avoid the burden of ultimate self-consciousness. For in our professional lives, such awareness may be dangerous to the dreamer that lies within us, should we equip ourselves with his knowledge.

Yet, he may grant us a wisdom we do not yet possess.

On The Beggars Visual Field

What does this man or woman see?

Flocks of robots walking down high streets? Modernized vehicles powering their way through roadwork systems? Blind ignorance descending through the atmospheres of these vast, constructed underground tunnels as we rush and traverse the direction required by our so-called "jobs"—these roles, rather, as we personally know them to be.

He watches. He watches you, as you do not know how to watch yourself—nor may your friend or partner. He will see every insecurity that possesses you. He will see how you find social environments fearful. He understands the nature of man's mind perfectly, and yet, to himself, he is useless. The role of living as a homeless beggar presents an unusual dilemma: though he may possess an entire library of knowledge on human behavior—insights modern psychological self-help teachings attempt to articulate, lessons on social cues, on how to give and receive them, on how to navigate interactions—his knowledge does not serve him.

His practice is hopeless, because he knows that the nature of his existence is what we find repulsive. Even if, prior to his current position, he was a man of status, it would not matter. Many of his kind—war veterans and others of similar caliber—have found themselves on the streets, trapped in these forgotten lives.

This man deserves eschatological respect, if such a thing may be bestowed upon the mind of mankind. He finds a glory we cannot, for he sees what we refuse to understand about our own existence. It is through our absence that he perceives the nature of the world, a world we have been conditioned to ignore. We have been adapted—adapted to the frameworks of our so-called normal human lives. But the beggar exists outside of this framework.

His subtle sitting position may, in itself, be considered rational. His choice to sit near the busiest sections of the city—train stations, supermarkets, crowded traffic lanes before major junctions, even public events where people flock—is not without reason. There is rationality in his positioning, though it is misapplied to his own detriment.

He carries his time as a weapon, wielding it against us—the flock—wisely, despite being unable to complement his life with order or with a self-ailment, as we might declare ourselves to have. We convince ourselves that we are different from this individual because we do not sit on filthy roads—our ingrained hygiene programming having tailored our rational avoidances... shall we say.

We may pass by these souls lingering on the very edge of reality itself—hopelessly tarnished, forgotten, and unannounced to our own personal connection with this reality that they, too, contend with, just as we do. This wholeness, fractured by his sheer presence, leaves us with feelings of guilt—but not personal guilt.

There is an essence layered within this guilt, something deeper, something more suited to the term Pudor Mundi—

Pudor (Latin) meaning shame, modesty, or a sense of moral embarrassment.
Mundi (Latin) meaning "of the world" or "of existence."

A shame not entirely our own, but one that belongs to existence itself.

And within our own moral embarrassment, it is not tailored to the purpose-driven aspects of our lives—the jobs we hold, our well-being—it is not necessarily a comparison of the mind-body dilemma. Rather, he presents to us the possibility of a card that could be dealt to us. Yet, in this very conceptualization, we feed ourselves with rooted ancestral and modern fears as we pass him by carelessly, because time is on the clock for us—we live, unlike him. He does not live as we know the term to be understood. And in facing him, we neglect ourselves.

These fears—not being enough, fear of failure, embarrassment over losing our potential—are not the only things we neglect when confronted by his presence. He becomes a disheveled labyrinth that we instinctively avoid.

It is, strikingly, also a fear of wisdom.

We see a life so distant from our own—from the advertisements that condition us, from the American Dream, the European nuclear family, the trajectory of job, career, family, and death. We see a soul burdened by the failures of our civilization. This moral embarrassment stems from a psycho economic insecurity woven into the tapestry of our interconnected lives. His rough appearance, the sleepless nights, the possible meager drug habit, the torment that engulfs his night terrors—these signal to us a road that, though previously mentioned as a potential fate, also represents something deeper.

We see his road as one of struggle—no doubt—but also as the very struggle that we, deep inside, seek. The road to knowledge. The desire to abandon life as we know it and seek some serene nirvana, some knowing that we are not mere mechanical animals functioning as cogs in the day-to-day. That we are something else entirely—some other matter, some other conscious, living pattern.

On The Nature Of His Social Network

Who, like ourselves, does this individual have to concretely implement a sense of camaraderie and unity with?

Let us not forget the obvious distance between him and ourselves, beyond his functionally desolate existence. This man is without the digital world as we know it. Does he apply his presence on social media? What is his social media?

He may possibly have access to a phone through organizations and the like, but the man or woman I am searching for would almost certainly have sold their phone for something else—a temporary resolution to the immediate and forcefully pressurizing agony that weighs on their bodies by the second.

Considering the possibility that phones are almost accessible to him through several means—one being the choice to steal from a stranger—his options are endless if he resides within a city. And let us not ignore the fact that the streets are his veins, his blood patterned as the alleys and crossroads are. The city has become his neural network; he could make a hit and escape at any time—if he is a man in his situation without a moral compass.

The question of this moral compass dissolving over the span of his survival is a matter for another time, a complicated subject in itself.

But rather that there are organisations that will implement certain legislative action in aiding his life.

Below, you will find various foundations available in the United Kingdom—those that complement his self-consciousness to a form of social network, if, in his world, such a thing may be applicable to his existence.

National Organisations:

1. Crisis – A national charity offering education, employment support, housing assistance, and direct aid to people experiencing homelessness.
   • Website: www.crisis.org.uk
2. Shelter – Provides legal advice, support, and advocacy for those facing homelessness or poor housing conditions.
   • Website: www.shelter.org.uk
3. St Mungo’s – Supports homeless individuals with housing, healthcare, and job training programs across England.
   • Website: www.mungos.org
4. The Big Issue Foundation – Supports vendors of The Big Issue magazine, helping them rebuild their lives through work and housing opportunities.
   • Website: www.bigissue.com
5. Centrepoint – Focused on helping homeless young people (aged 16-25) by providing housing, education, and mental health support.
   • Website: www.centrepoint.org.uk
6. Emmaus UK – A network of communities offering accommodation, work, and social enterprise opportunities for homeless people.
   • Website: www.emmaus.org.uk
7. Glass Door – Provides emergency winter shelters and year-round support services across London.
   • Website: www.glassdoor.org.uk

Regional Organisations:

8. Thames Reach (London) – Helps people escape homelessness through housing, employment support, and mental health services.
   • Website: www.thamesreach.org.uk
9. Depaul UK (National, focus on youth homelessness) – Works with vulnerable young people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
   • Website: www.depaul.org.uk
10. Simon Community (Scotland) – Provides outreach, emergency accommodation, and long-term support for homeless individuals in Scotland.

• Website: www.simonscotland.org

11. The Booth Centre (Manchester) – Offers practical support, training, and employment help for homeless individuals.

• Website: www.boothcentre.org.uk

12. Framework (East Midlands) – Helps rough sleepers and those at risk of homelessness through accommodation, addiction recovery, and mental health services.

• Website: www.frameworkha.org

But the individual I am speaking of is the true desolate, silent city ghoul—the one who has been moulded by the life he has lived, who may even have inclinations to remain within it permanently, despite not desiring to. Inclinations are not static; they are transformative. And his natural requirement is that he becomes like water—every single minute he is out, surrounded by the city skyline.

So, who does he have around him?

We will not find anyone from the other world—our so-called reality—by his side. His circle is, and always will be, made up of a collective of similar figures, those forged by the same daunting walk of life. The nights he spends—as we sleep in our freshly washed bedding, beneath feather-down duvets—he spends beside another like himself, strangling the cosmos for a pocket of air to breathe. Through the night, like serpents overloaded, dying from venom-induced asphyxiation.

His second possible contemporaries are the social workers—the ones from the aforementioned organisations. He will have certain "officers" allocated to him, tasked with offering him solutions to his inner world, despite it being irreparable. For if we are speaking of a man who has lived this way for years, he has seen death in the city night, has abandoned friends before. For, as we begin to understand, he exists in the kingdom of the animal—it is kill or be killed. Not always in the literal sense, but in the Hobbesian manner: a world where, in the end, survival is the only principle.

And so, his circle has expanded.

But—

Who does he build truer relationships with?

Those he sleeps on the cobbles with, or those who deliver possibility to him?

Those who grant him access to be humane?

These my friends, are questions we must walk away from without attempting to answer.

For this shaman of the streets has been noticed here today. But out there, out in the world, as you read this in your comfort, know that there are men starving and wandering without direction, without a home, without a friend, and without a family—yet carrying a wisdom they cannot articulate themselves.

Only through the avoidances we so carefully maintain does his spirit thicken, as ours may crumble under the phases of nature he has endured.