Crime
So the other night some criminals broke into my house all took all my stuff out of it. Luckily, chunky desktop PCs appear to be crime-proof, so I can still write stuff which is nice. The lack of pretty much everything else I used to own is less nice, obviously.
It's not so much the loss of stuff that's pissing me off at the moment. Obviously it's annoying that I don't have that stuff anymore, and the loss of monetary value of it is also a pain. But what really gets me, what makes me feel kind of disappointed, more than anything, is that it's possible for people I don't know to get into the place that is supposedly mine, take the stuff that's supposedly mine, and leave, and there's bugger all I can do about it.
Now this sounds stupid, and obviously I've always been aware that crime is a thing that happens. But it's the sort of thing, a bit like serious illness, that unless you've experienced it, you don't ever really believe that it can happen to you. You are aware of the concept of crime, but not of the actuality of crime.
It's made me think a bit about the concept of ownership. I decided that I own stuff because I paid someone some money for it and put it inside a place which I also pay someone money for. Therefore I am now entitled to this thing which I have paid the money for. This concept works while everybody plays by the rules, but it all goes down the shitter when someone decides that they want a thing, and being as it's there they might as well just take it. No amount of me paying anyone some money is going to hamper anyone's ability to pick up a thing and stroll casually off with it through the big hole they made in the side of my house.
I suppose what I feel is a sense of outrage along the lines of 'how dare they do this to me when I'm doing things properly?' I'm playing by the rules. I pay people money for the stuff that I want because this is the way things work. The criminals are doing it wrong. They're not playing by the rules. And yet they have my stuff and I don't. And there's exactly shit all anyone can do about it.
Now obviously, if they get caught, they'll end up in jail, and if this becomes the case I am going go personally to visit them in jail and laugh directly into their faces for the duration of the visiting time. However, the chances of this actually happening are basically none. Sure, if they keep on robbing then they might get caught eventually, but by then it'll make no difference to me. Right now they're probably sitting in the their flat, most likely only a couple of streets away from here, enjoying the huge pile of drugs they bought with the money they got from selling all my shit.
And yeah, there's shit all anyone can do about this. In this sort of situation the police are of about as much practical use as the homeless guy sat outside the tube station. And it's entirely not their fault; if the police aren't there at the exact moment the crime is happening, then how can they be expected to realistically do anything about it? Obviously, turning up in under four hours might be nice, but hey, it's London, and it's Crime Central around these parts. There are clearly a load more criminals to deal with than there are police to deal with them.
One thing, I suppose beneficial, that I've realised from this is how pointless most of my possessions actually are. I say they took all my stuff; in reality, they took all my stuff that wasn't clothes, books, this computer, or furniture. But all the stuff they did take was basically just shiny entertainment equipment. Expensive, enjoyable and desirable, but basically pointless. I can function completely effectively without any of it. I've got fewer ways to entertain myself, but that's it. In fact, it turns out that over 80% of the things I own exist purely to stop me from ever becoming bored. This probably says something about me. Maybe it says something about our generation as a whole.
One final festive note is that from what I can tell, robbery is the exact polar opposite of Christmas. At Christmas, you spend ages looking forward to it, you get brand new possessions, and you end up with more things than you started with. At Crimemas, it you don't expect it at all, all your possessions disappear, and you end up with less stuff than you started with. Way less stuff. Except I suppose both scenarios involve men (fictional or otherwise) breaking into your house, so they can't be exact opposites after all.
