Procrastination blogging

I should probably be studying, so that is why I am writing in this blog. This is after successfully delaying dinner in order to avoid studying. (I said to myself, "I'll start studying after dinner." Thus if I never eat dinner, I never have to study. The logic is impenetrable.) That strategy failed, (I am composing this blog while chewing a mouthful of burrito) so here I am. Anyway, enough with the meta blog, on with the blog:

As I went to get a burrito for dinner, admitting the futility of plan Never Eat Dinner, I was working on my backup plan, which was writing a blog entry about why I had started reading Harry Potter, with connections to postmodernism, niche marketing, and formative childhood experiences. If you think that sounds like vintage self-congratulatory, narcissistic blogging, well, you're probably right. Anyway, at the burrito place, I ordered a huge burrito and a quesadilla to go along with it, in the full knowledge that finishing both of them tonight would be a difficult, inglorious task. But I was hungry, so my brain wasn't fully functional. On my way back, I walked past an old homeless woman on the sidewalk, who was preparing her own dinner - cold green peas out of a can. Her back was facing me, which I was thankful for; I would feel impossibly guilty looking her in the eye, knowing I had an overabundance of food. About 10 steps after I walked past her, I groaned, knowing that there was essentially no possible justification for me to not share my food with her. The usual reasons either didn't apply (I couldn't exactly claim that she would trade food for alcohol), or sounded weak and tinny. 

So I dug out the quesadilla from the bag and headed back to the lady, who was still rummaging through her things. She was still facing away from the street, and didn't respond when I said "excuse me", probably because it has been awhile since someone has spoken to her without her speaking first. I held out the plastic box with the quesadilla in it wordlessly, and she responded with a surprised, muted "oh". She took the box carefully out of my hands, waiting for me to let go before pulling it towards her, in the same way that cashiers do so that you don't feel like they are snatching your money from your hand. When she said "Thank you", she sounded like someones kindly grandmother, no traces of the roughness or grit that comes with sleeping on sidewalks. I didn't know what to say, so I said, "Have a good evening", which sounded perfunctory and empty, and walked away.

I didn't feel good about it at all. I hadn't shared my food out of self-righteousness, exactly, perhaps more out of a sense of duty. It wasn't out of love, probably, and although that would be the ideal, maybe duty isn't so bad a substitute sometimes. But at the same time, the utter futility of the gesture hit me pretty hard. She ate a warm meal tonight, but she'll be back to cold peas tomorrow and the day after that. In the long run, I haven't done anything to improve her life at all. And worse than that, it is not entirely clear to me what I could have done. It is times like these when the vast majority of economics seems totally irrelevant and pointless - the times when it should be most salient and operative. I don't know what to make of that (re)realization, so I guess I'll end this blog here.