If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away

Henry David Thoreau Walden, Conclusion, 1854

Today in the tram I saw a homeless man sitting on one of the seats. I took the seat right in front of him and even right before I sat down I noticed his rather sour smell. My thoughts were probably not too different from most people’s: Why did I sit down there? Should I move to another seat? Will he get off soon? Will he be insulted if I move to another seat? Do I care if he is insulted? Well if he doesn’t want people moving away from him maybe he should wash.

And from there I went to: Well he probably doesn’t have anywhere he can wash. He probably has other problems than a little smell, especially since it got really cold last night. He’s probably in the tram to warm up, so he won’t get off anytime soon but most likely will travel from one end to the other till someone kicks him out. He probably didn’t chose deliberately to live in the streets but drifted there by circumstance and maybe some choices he made, some bad luck and some choices other people made. I won’t say it can easily happen to everyone but it can easily happen to everyone who is a little different, who doesn’t always fit in completely. And let’s be honest, we probably all belong in that category, at least sometimes and in some places.

So I decided to just accept him as a fellow human being, who is a little different but not really better or worse. A little smell won’t hurt me, let him enjoy his warmth, the night will be cold again. I stayed seated, which he probably didn’t notice or care about one way or the other, but which made a difference for me because I consciously chose to stay. And because by staying I started thinking about people being different an how quickly and easily we push away anyone who is different as if afraid we’d get contaminated by them. I decided to make more of an effort to accept everyone the way they are.