I want to be free

For the last couple of years, in the midst of my college angst, as I raged against the futility of formal education, I talked to myself and my friends about how great life could be if I only mustered the courage to drop my meaningless worries over exams and papers to travel the world and really see, really experience, what it means to be alive..to live..free from a robotic, uninspiring life (sorry for the long run-on). From my time traveling alone in Australia, meeting people all over the world from random countries, I realized the backpackers are doing exactly what Ive been imagining. No more than 25, these vagabonds left their homes in search for knowledge..directly through human and cultural interaction. Their lives are different every single day because they don't live with a rigid plan. They don't worry about the social stigmas placed on low-earning careers. They literally travel with the wind, living frugally and working to get by..to live without the unnecessary. Yet, they are so perfectly content and happy..beyond the typical white collared man chained to his company and the typical blue-collared man chained to his hope for more luxury. I've been given a rare opportunity to taste the wonders of such a lifestyle..and I simply cannot let it end.

To be or not to be

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday and it got me thinking (for better or worse) in circles. A cornerstone of my personality rests (or use to) on an ideal that people are inherently innocent and good. I applied this indiscriminately to the ignorant blonde, the terrorist, the homeless bum, the child rapist, etc. So one of my biggest peeves involved one's inability to restrain judgments that prevent a tolerance for how other people live and how their thoughts and actions are produced and "brainwashed" by unique environments beyond their control. I was faced with the rebuttal that this inability in itself is an innate characteristic that I am hypocritically denouncing. But I guess my point was this: if you are fortunate enough to willingly self-reflect and realize the limitations of your own character, why not try to develop yourself? His answer basically implied a defiance to change, an acceptance for things as is..an idea that restirred my comforting, yet disconcerting, beliefs of determinism.

For example, I always refused to give homeless people money because I thought that if they could speak english and have two legs and arms, they can get off their asses and make something out of their lives...especially since my parents (who didn't speak english and had no money upon immigration) were able to. But now, I question if the lazy homeless bums are genuinely capable of even thinking in such a manner.
So I'm torn between helping the helpless (and interestingly, why?) or simply letting it all be..