"It pays my way, and it corrodes my soul..."
Are you Heller's Bob Slocum or Melville's Bartleby? Or someone in between the dismal acceptance of the grind and the refusal to comply with the demands that your existence is owed to the labor for something without regard for you?
...that when you spend time helping the truly broken—the ones who require more patience than seems reasonable—you walk away with two revelations: how much of yourself still works, and how vital the fragile thread of kindness is that holds people together.