The Beggar’s Superpower

I have had many gurus in my life.

‘Guru’ is a Sanskrit term for ‘mentor, guide, expert, or master’.

One of these gurus was a beggar in Seattle by the name of Wakira, and I had a man-crush on him, meaning I didn’t want to fuck him.

I wanted to be him.

Wakira was handsome but that wasn’t the only trait he was blessed with by providence.

He was also fearless.

He was so fearless he embraced homelessness — he slept either in abandoned buildings or even on heating vents on the University of Washington college campus, in the middle of winter, sometimes in snowing weather conditions.

Another thing about Wakira was that the women loved him.

He would have women he didn’t know simply walk up to him and ask him for sex, despite the fact that he hadn’t showered in days or weeks and he was wearing what amounted to dirty rags.

This was one of my earliest gurus.

I would drink cheap malt liquor with Wakira, sitting with him trying to discern what the primordial source of his magic was.

Whatever it was and wherever it came from, he had it, and to this day I pray for his safety because the way he embraced danger and risk, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has not died an early death.

The old saying goes, ‘only the good die young’, though I like to hope some of the good can live long lives if they get lucky and play their cards right, without aggressing upon others and going with the flow.

Fearlessness is the greatest superpower of them all, methinks.

One day, maybe, I too can be a beggar without attachment to material stability, without fear of lack of shelter, embracing my fate wherever it leads me.

Such is a recipe for eternal life, if not in this life, then in the next.