Does where you live matter?

There is the accident of birth, which determines a lot of the rest of our lives.  And then add the layers of the choices that we make and the decisions that others make for us.

"Self-made" success is, therefore, one screwed up idea that we celebrate for no reason other than to fool ourselves.

Self-made failures?  How about a homeless person?  Their lives on the streets are "self-made"?

Consider the story of Matthew Shaver, who "lives on the streets outside of Union Station" in Los Angeles.

Shaver is from the Seattle area. He says he grew up in foster care, that he is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, that he was injured in Afghanistan about half a dozen years ago and that he has done stints in jail. In conversation, his thoughts frequently meander — and the details of his life are often described cagily and hazily, making many of them impossible to verify.
But a rap sheet that matches his name and his circumstances in Washington state shows a guilty plea for drug possession, among other things, and numerous appearances at a Veterans Treatment Court.
“Depression has always been a thing,” Shaver says over breakfast at a Denny’s across the street from Union Station.
“I like to get baked,” he adds. “I like to get high occasionally.” Though he says that in recent years he’s cut back on drinking, which has a tendency to bring out his aggression.

Which part of his backstory would you like to focus on?

Shaver was featured not merely because he is homeless.  But, because:

Matthew Shaver casually emerges from the packs of speed-walking commuters scuttling across Union Station and quietly takes a seat at the public piano at the heart of one of Los Angeles’ busiest transportation hubs.
For 20 straight minutes — the maximum play time, according to the posted rules — Shaver takes over the keys, filling the atrium with buoyant improvisations of jazz, pop and blues.
His playing often attracts a small crowd. Tourists film him. Regulars drop spare change and bills. He’s such a fixture that if the security guards are otherwise occupied (or feeling generous), he might get to play longer than the time limit.

Yes, he is a piano-playing, drug-using, homeless veteran.

A few months ago, the friend and I attended an event at the local university.  It was therapeutic in so many ways, after the fascist took over the White House and made it a "white" house.  The event was a talk by violinist Vijay Gupta, who:

deeply believes in music as a form of social medicine. He also believes that each of us has an obligation to share whatever our personal gifts are for the betterment of our communities and the world.

Gupta talked about his initiative to go to the shelters for the homeless and play music for the homeless and with the homeless.  He was not doing this as a social service.  Not as a resume-booster.  Not as a charity.

In 2011, Gupta co-founded and began serving as Artistic Director of Street Symphony, a non-profit organization dedicated to engaging distinguished musicians in performance and dialogue with marginalized communities experiencing homelessness and incarceration. A gifted spokesperson for the power of the arts to change lives, Gupta believes that musical engagement reconnects us to our shared humanity across vast divides, and ultimately impacts social justice.

The piano-playing homeless Matthew Shaver adds more evidence to Gupta's point about our shared humanity, and the obligation that each of us have to contribute to the betterment of our immediate communities and the world.