4 am in Rome
Rome looks different at 4 a.m. in the morning. The architecture is stunning, and the attention to detail is breathtaking, but all the tourists are asleep, and the streets are empty. All who remain are partygoers, drunkards, and the neglected. How can a city with so much passion by day appear so cold at night?
My train arrived in Roma Termini at 7 pm. I had no money and nowhere to stay, but I was beaming with enthusiasm. The thought of being alone in a new city with nowhere to stay and barely being able to speak the language would frighten a lot of people. Not me; I thought it was an adventure. I spent the next few hours visiting hostels and asking if they needed volunteers. They all gave me a phone number or email to contact and promptly bid me goodbye. With nowhere to volunteer and my budget unable to withstand paying 50 euros for one night of accommodation, my only option was the street. I walked back to the train station just before midnight. My enthusiasm faded and was replaced with a feeling of pessimism and self-doubt. The station was loud and uncomfortable, which made it impossible to sleep. Even if there was a comfortable spot to lie down, I probably would not have been able to sleep anyway; my mind was racing. Thoughts of the future began to make me incredibly anxious. I began to worry about where I would be the next night and the night after that. What if I couldn’t find a place to volunteer? What if there are no jobs? What will I do if I run out of money? Will I become homeless? Will I become poor?
Thoughts of poverty were suffocating my consciousness, and then, something strange started to happen. Everywhere I looked, I saw poverty. All around me were people in the same position as I was, trying to sleep on the train station floor with every possession they had in the world next to them. Some people barely had any possessions; some didn’t even have shoes. Suddenly, I was surrounded by people with dirty clothes and unkempt faces, waddling around and begging for money. I walked outside the train station, and I could see rows of people sleeping rough on flattened cardboard boxes. Having completely given up on the prospect of getting any sleep, I headed to the 24-hour McDonald's to get some tea. The outside was surrounded by people from Africa who had nowhere else to go. While sipping my tea inside the McDonalds, my hope of taking a nap was quickly squashed when I saw the security guard kicking out two people with suitcases, trying to get some shut-eye in one of the booths. My anxiety had turned into acceptance, and my acceptance turned to observation. All I saw was poverty.
I dashed my tea in the bin and left the McDonalds, determined to alter my mindset. For hours, I walked through the beautiful streets of Rome. At one point, I passed the famous Fontana di Trevi. Two years prior, I had visited the Fontana di Trevi during the day; my memory of the place was of a crowded place. At two in the morning, it was totally empty—quite a contrast. I continued across a bridge and found myself in the Piazza San Pietro in the heart of Vatican City. Subconsciously, I believe I was seeking guidance from God in a time of confusion, and I was not the only one. People in tents and sleeping bags occupied the piazza and the surrounding area. ‘What is happening in this City?’ I thought, ‘How can so many people be subjected to such a state? Are the times so dire? ’
It was 4 am in Rome when I realised it was all my fault. All my thoughts and actions have led me to this point, to see a truth that exists in every society across the globe. Poverty exists in the eye of the beholder. That night, I had inadvertently adopted the poverty mindset, and it tainted my mind. Even in Vatican City, the city representing God, poverty is all I saw. Poverty is a disease of the mind that feeds off attention, fostering a sense of self-loathing and worthlessness. Fail to break from its grasp, and it shall condemn the mind to a life of suffering. The sinister irony in unconsciousness beings, trapped by the illusion of the physical realm, sleeping by God's bedside, the all-knowing and the eternal, in search of warmth. You are what you eat; you see what you think.