Agh…so I don’t carry cash much, and when I do it’s $20s because that’s the smallest denomination my ATM will give me. There are so many homeless here that I can’t afford to hand out 20’s to all of them…but I also can’t make arbitrary moral decisions about who “deserves” my money more, so then I get paralyzed and I give to nobody, which is not in any way a solution to my moral quandary and makes me hate myself.
So when I don’t have money to give, I feel shame and I try not to make eye contact…which, let’s be real, is probably more offensive than acknowledging them. I just worry I’m gonna “lead them on” if I go talk but don’t give? One of my idols, Amanda Palmer, used to busk, she was one of those living statues, and not that she speaks for all of them but she says half the time she just wanted to feel seen. And I don’t do that, I don’t make them feel seen.
I feel weird too about giving to buskers versus the people who just ask for money because I feel like I’m saying “good, you deserve my money more than that guy who probably needs it just as much, because you did a trick for me.” Which just feels….icky.
If I could just figure out a way to get small bills on a regular basis, I’d be happy to give…brick and mortar locations of my bank are not as accessible to me to get money from a teller.