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Busking is nothing like begging. In the UK it's performing, and getting some extra change for it, though there are those who 'busk' for a living. Many times buskers are people who play music, to get some spare change sure, but busking has also become a way for starting musicians to get heard or practice in front of an audience. In the London underground, there are assigned pitches (spots) for buskers and they are scheduled by the underground authorities to be there. /threadjack
I am also more inclined to give people spare change if they are trying to earn it from me. Though I cannot bring myself to give change to the little boy who forces a chihuahua to sit on his shoulder with a makeshift coin collecting container in his mouth, while barely playing the accordeon.
I never give change to gypsies or their children, because they look perfectly healthy and able. Get a job. Also don't give change to an old lady who I know gives it to her junkie son. There are few beggars I feel I should give my money to.
To be honest, I rarely give away change like that. I have been known to give beggars the option to walk into a café and order some food, paid by me. That way I know where my money's going.
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Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.
Fernando Pessoa, 1918
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