Abandonment
The one who knows lack seeks abundance like a cure for a disease. An urchin despairs after crumbs of bread because the stomach growls. But the rich man doesn’t know of lack, for his plate is always plentiful. In anguish he calls out: “hunger”, but doesn’t know that which is true hunger — a pain so profound that it seeps in deeper than your bones. Hunger is a hell the rich man will never know.
That pride-eating, soul-crushing pang of being ignored and rejected when you’re begging on the streets. The rich man sees it but doesn’t even think over it twice, because on his to-do list there’s no checkbox for the world he says he cares about. All that abundance made him totally blind, and he came to believe that one coin, a nod or a smile could save a fading soul.
How many more times will the urchin reach out his bony hand before starvation imposes on him imminent death? The rich man thinks himself chivalrous, but he won’t let the urchin into his home to pass the winter by the fire. Every time he closes his gates shut, he reinforces that which the urchin at birth found out: some people are born undeserving of warmth and love. Some people were brought into the world to starve.
