Humans of New York is one of my favorite Facebook pages,  I read it daily.  It has uplifting and interesting photos and quotes from everyday New Yorkers, and occasionally Brendan travels and then it's Human of Planet Earth, equally insightful,  showing how interconnected we humans are.   Recently he put up this photo and even without the quote,  I could tell there was a story there -

And here was his quote,  what the man behind the cigar said:
"I don't have anything personally against homeless people. But I try to avoid getting into conversations with them. Because I may be walking later with one of my influential friends, and the homeless person may come up to me and start acting like we're friends. And how's that going to look? You've got to choose who you're seen with. It's a matter of optics."

And of course the comments responding to that quote were strong and flavorful,  but the thing that struck me most was how fearful that confident cigar carrying man had to be. 

One thing that has changed for me,  as I've aged,  is that I no longer care about optics.  I've been reading cards since my twenties but I was not confident enough to be a full time tarot reader then. I was fearful of other people's judgment.   I had to wait till my forties,  till I no longer really cared what people said or thought,  and then I could casually and easily introduce myself as a tarot card reader.   For a while there my family or friends would chip in - but she's also a trained therapist,  she worked in the UK and in Australia in the hospital system,  she was an addiction counsellor. But I don't even need them to do that. I'm quite happy to say tarot card reader and let it rest there. 

That's one of the joys we can give ourselves as we age - as long as something is acceptable to us personally,  then it's acceptable. And if it not acceptable to me,  then how the world feels about it doesn't really matter either.   So this man,  with his cigar and his optics,  he is not there at all.  He's not comfortable in his own skin or with his own decisions.  He could use a tarot reading...