Do good recklessly

.. context winning or inherited. We don’t know that their designer items aren’t fake or similarly gifts or such. It isn’t like to be struggling to provide one can’t have any dignity or self care and if they don’t look visibly dirty and aren’t wearing mismatched tattered rags they aren’t truly struggling. I’ve known homeless people who would make daily trips to the beach or other places to shower, who kept shaven with found razors and such and who washed their clothes in available water sources or at the holes of people who allowed it and such. You wouldn’t know at a glance they were unemployed or homeless. So I mean- we can’t tell just by looking.

I’d think that with all the wide spread talk and knowledge of social media we’d all be on a page where we realized how these little snap shots of a person don’t give us the real picture, they show us what they want us to see and unless you know them well and spend time with them you don’t get to see the things they try to hide from others or the whole story. So with thieves- you never know what was a gift, what was their departed parents or spouses or what they saved for years or decades to have and might just assume that because they have such a thing, they must be better off or that they won’t miss it or that they can easily replace it.

There is of course a hubris too- often times it is true that you may actually need or perhaps even deserve something more than someone who has it- but to steal is to say that you are the authority on that, that your judgment is absolute and that you get to dictate who needs and deserves what. One would wonder with such capability to make complex decisions correctly, why one would need to resort to theft- so the thought process is inherently flawed in that sense. And of course, some people just steal because they want. It isn’t that they need something or can make an argument of necessity, it’s that they want or feel entitled to. So it is more complex I think than just “if they stole it they need it more” or “all thief’s deserve harsh punishment!” But at the end of the day many thieves aren’t contemplating such deep conflicts of morality or thinking about the damage and harm of their actions.

So many of those people are just thoughtless or selfish, but what you often see is a detachment or rejection of caring. The homeless man who killed himself by jumping in front of a commuter train- suicide and death are generally tragic, or tragic it comes to that- but consider all the lives disrupted by that suicide. All the people who missed work, big meetings, seeing friends or loved ones, making it to their dates or movies etc. those are all a bit superficial in relation to a life and I’m not comparing- I’m saying that this one action did have consequences for all those people who service disruption etc. of a major rail line at peak hours and subsequent clean up and investigation would cause.

But…. One must wonder, or in some cases the person committing the act makes it very clear and there is no need to wonder, if they weren’t intentionally causing that impact. And that’s the thing- it’s very understandable I think, “screw you.” A person who feels powerless and forgotten, who sees other people going about their lives looking happy and having things they don’t, a person who likely facing discrimination- stares and awkwardness and refused service and such- and they are fed up and going to die- and they think that they’ll give others a taste of that too with their last breath. It is a type of self affirming cowardice akin to most suicide terrorism. An angry and hurt person, often marginalized and impotent, and there is nothing stopping them from standing up and possibly suffering or dying for doing so- but they figure that death escapes all consequence. They just have to make that one decision in a moment and then they get their “revenge” and never have to worry about

The consequences. They don’t even have to worry about if it matters. They can make up a story to tell themselves about what their death will mean and then even if nothing comes of it- in their last moments they believe they changed the world or “got even.” And well… that attitude- the attitude that also says “fuck these people, I’ll take what I want..” is sometimes inborn but usually it is largely a product of circumstances. The sad, angry, confused, pathetic bunch thy converged on the US Capitol or made a “freedom convoy” or their supporters- they are much the same. Created by society in part. You can’t tell someone you aren’t going to kill them but they also have no place to live. When people feel like they are being left behind they usually take little or no comfort knowing that it is for some grand plan or noble future or whatever else. If the world was going to be destroyed like some movie and we could send only the top few thousand brightest and most “essential” humans to survive

safely and rebuild while the rest of humanity died- so you think that many of ANY of the people chosen as essential would be one of those truckers from that convoy? Do you think I would be chosen? Do you think that the millions or hundreds of millions or arguably billions of idiots that don’t contribute anything that a machine couldn’t likely do better to the world or our species who aren’t chosen would just shrug and go: “yeah. Makes sense. I’m not the smartest and I’m not really the best at anything critical so that seat shouldn’t be wasted on me…” or do you think that most people, if not their own selves would be rioting to try to get their children on such a flight to safety? How many parents would say: “yeah. My kid is not worth saving.”

So people, even people who objectively can acknowledge their lack of value in practical or quantifiable terms, tend to have a sense of value. People tend to resent when others point out a lack in their value wether that is direct or not, true or not. Most people will get upset of you point out something perceived as unfaltering about them even if it is true. Obese people often getting offended at being called obese or told or reminded that they physically cannot fit somewhere. Short people often get offended about being reminded they are short. Many tall people get offended or upset when their height is singled out. Call a drunk a drunk or an absentee parent absentee or so forth and see how it goes. So that’s just a general truism.

So of course, when you marginalize people and when they feel or are denied opportunity and access, many people get resentful. Many people might feel they do not need to play by rules which by default disadvantage them or don’t even consider them. So while we cannot and should not remove all blame from the perpetrator of a crime or trespass, we also should examine ourselves and our society when we find we have issues with crime. The white collar millionaire who steals millions doesn’t need that money- they could live a life as comfortable as most people without ever earning more than what wealth they have. The middle class welfare cheat is just looking for that little extra cherry on top of their Sunday. We can argue materialism and poor social priorities that prize and reward wealth over ability or productivity or ethics etc- but in general those people are just greedy. The criminal that steals a watch to sell to pay their rent because they work and can’t afford to keep a home for…

.. their family or they can’t find work is a different sort. They are created because society has failed to provide a way forward for them. Now- we can argue there are other ways. Sometimes that isn’t true. Sometimes where someone lives and their circumstances etc. preclude any reasonable alternatives. That said- yes. I am an older person, a career profesional who… I do alright financially. So yes, many times I can look at other peoples lives and find where they can do better for themselves. Many of us are coming from perspectives where we can. You can perhaps easily take the 25 year old delivery driver and if you know their life and finances you can give them a clear and direct path that will likely greatly better their circumstances over 5-10 years. An old colleague Anaí used to do a pygmalion game of sorts. We’d look for hires internal to our organization from low levels to bring to mid entry level. We’d find people no one wanted to give a chance. To be frank- lots of “lost causes”

And “idiots.” People who sometimes couldn’t read or write at an adult level- and we’d train them to work in higher roles with career advancement beyond at best managing a shift or something like that. We did it both as a kindness, but also- it was for ego. We liked to show other managers how bad they were by taking people that they said couldn’t do anything but the simplest tasks and turning them into valued associates- and perhaps because we both have dislike for the system and the self importance of so many who think that only the “special few” are capable of doing certain jobs. And we did! 99% success over decades at it. We built literally an illiterate dock worker into a department head at a corporate office team. We can’t take all the credit- the guy had the potential and worked hard.

We helped teach him to read- or at least recognize what he needed to in order to do the job. We helped take his work ethic and transfer it to a mentality of strategic use of effort and time. We helped himchange the way he presented himself- he kept his personality and his uniqueness and an approachability that allowed workers to relate to him, but we polished him up a bit. We mentored him and helped him make better decisions and taught him about finances and budgets and all sorts of things.

And the thing is- it was mostly simple stuff, with this guy and most of them. Simple stuff. But- it was stuff that no one in those lives knew. Their parents had largely lived the lives they were on track to live. They’re peers too. No one taught them and they didn’t have anyone to really observe doing this stuff and most of them, at least several times in our little program, would express that they couldn’t do it, or that we should focus on someone else, or that they wouldn’t “sell out” or change or whatever- because even though you could argue that a person who never was exposed to the language of success should know from the internet and Tv and blah blah the “path,” the thing is that if you’ve never been in that position you really can’t understand the mind set. It’s like a wall- things “those people” do but “people like you” can’t do.

It seems dumb. What is stopping you? But if it were that simple to realize that- wouldn’t most or all of us be millionaires or living our dreams or on the track to those things? Why can’t YOU do what any number of people have done to become rich or free of work? There are a lot of possible reasons but in the end- sometimes we just need a push to realize we can do it. Sometimes we need a little hand holding and guidance. And that’s the thing- a lot of people in bad positions who commit “crimes of necessity” were never exposed to the things that would give them the ability to make better choices. A lot of them don’t have the connections that living a successful life tends to build and that so many of us rely on when we are in need.
So I mean- we do kinda have to take a deeper look at these things and ideally consider things on more than a primitive level.