A Penny for Your (Corrupted) Thoughts ...

[FrankGSterleJr]

Yet another unorthodox manner in which to make a philosophical point ...



Stealing a Home Run—the (Re)Turning of Fortunes Way Out In Right Field

It was on his way out of the grocery store after some brief shopping that Dennis (not his real name) spotted the anomalously-solitary wallet laying on one of the few resting benches situated right by the small, snug lottery-ticket outlet. Not surprisingly, he experienced an adrenalin rush and even some anxiety: I sure as hell hope there’s no money in it to tempt me, he instantly thought. Simultaneously, he contrarily thought, I sure as hell hope there’s cash in it, and enough of it, to make it a notable ‘sacrifice’ on my part; and following that thought, he also hoped that there would be no money in it to later make him regret not keeping the cash and returning the remaining contents via mailbox. (Unlike some thieves, he had no ambition to go crazy on the owner’s credit cards, etcetera.)
Regardless of the cocktail of thoughts and emotions, however, Dennis could see the folded, green stuff within. Then—perhaps having realized that he was not in a position of full liberty to be a thief, anyhow, for some of the eyes around could’ve been on him—he picked it up with his left hand (his usually-utilized right was quite full) and maneuvered his thump-tip to count the three folded twenties within.
As he did so, he audibly uttered, “somebody left their wallet,” before looking at the bottle-recyclables attendant about 20 feet away—all before hearing a clear, “it belongs to this man”; such was proclaimed by the lottery-ticket outlet attendant about 45 degrees to Dennis’s left. He then repeated a few times that, “there’s only three twenties in it,” which he later concluded that he felt compelled to audibly state in an attempt to make others in attention-range note that he was indeed ‘sacrificing.’
Walking up to the lottery-ticket outlet, he was informed by the attendant, “it belongs to him”; the attendant tapped the shoulder of a man, busy visually scanning scratch-&-win tickets through a glass display case, who wasn’t aware that a wallet had been found just feet away nor, much more importantly, even aware that he was no longer in possession of his own money and ID, etcetera.
“Are you sure it’s his?” Dennis queried the attendant, who answered in the affirmative. (Obviously he was concerned about the $60 ending up in the pocket of someone, likely a store employee, other than the rightful owner or, failing that, himself as first-finder.)
Finally having left the store, his guilt, shame and embarrassment complexes instantly procured repetitious unwanted thoughts of smugness immediately followed by guilt, shame and embarrassment. It was, Dennis also mused, very rare that he was granted such an occasion to feel so richly (though ironically also uncomfortably) smug. Indeed, swirls of smugness, guilt, shame and embarrassment all preceded multiple censures by him against himself for feeling smug—or self-righteousness, as some would perhaps prefer to describe themselves, though Dennis decided that he’d stick with the original terminology.
Nonetheless, having released himself from the what-would-be intense—maybe, for him, even irresistible—urge to steal, especially that wallet’s money, seemed like something quite healthy for his body, mind and soul.
However, Dennis still had the little, pointy, red guy on his left shoulder the whole time and the little, white-winged guy on the other shoulder. During the entire time, he could feel what they were ‘whispering’ into his ears and yelling across at each other. The fact was, the positive and negative thoughts and emotions were, for him in that situation, revolving around each other. And he found that it really sucked. Furthermore, he felt that he hadn’t spent a sufficient amount of time actually contemplating walking away with the wallet in order to accurately know which ‘half’ of him was more in control of his final decision than the other—the honest side or the dishonest.
It was the first time in Dennis’s life that he’d found a wallet laying out in the open, with no one (in some manner or another) attached to it; also, it was the first time in his life that he would willingly return the wallet with all of its cash. Nonetheless, he later mused: Would I have kept the money had I been completely alone and not near others at the store? Also, would I blatantly keep someone else’s money or, for that matter, even really want to keep it? But he felt fairly confident that, as he’d looked at the $60 and considered his true feelings, he didn’t really want it and most likely would’ve returned a coast-completely-clear, lost wallet with all of its cash. In a nutshell, the impulse to steal it fortunately was notably brief and weak.
Being relieved from his ‘thievery demon,’ for as long as it would last anyhow, was understandably a comfortable sensation to experience as he walked out of the store, without being in an immoral possession of something that was not his and should never have become his—a comfortable sensation that he wouldn’t have been allowed to enjoy not that long ago.

For too many years’ worth of great burden to his weary mind, Dennis’s obsessive-compulsive disorder compelled him to steal/shoplift so that he could compensate himself for (at least strongly perceived) material losses elsewhere in his daily events and ‘bad luck.’ It seemingly didn’t dawn upon him that if one really puts his mind to it, he’ll often come up with many (even if only strongly perceived) material losses in his life, even potentially everyday.
Yet, unlike so very many other thieves, perhaps even the vast majority of them, Dennis found that he’d feel just as bad, if not actually somewhat worse, when he’d get away with a theft as he would when he’d get caught (which occurred a considerably-small minority of thievery times throughout his thief-hood decades). Indeed, once free of any figurative event-horizon of getting caught during his getaway, he’d repeatedly experience twisting guilt, embarrassment and shame.
Regardless, unfortunately his nature for a very long time was corrupt when it came to material honesty, ever since a friend introduced him to shoplifting (a bad habit soon wrapping itself all around his psyche) when the two were just nine years old. From what he could recall, Dennis’s moral fibre was henceforth tainted, and getting caught the very odd time was never quite enough to set him permanently straight. The taint eventually became a stain, and—although he never got into any big-time-crime stealing—the little, red, pointy guy on his left shoulder virtually always knew how to diminish his material-wealth-based behavioral integrity, converting whatever was left of it after a few decades into a notable disgrace.
As expected, mixing the said bad habit with diagnosed and medicinally-treated mental illness, while pill-popping and/or consuming alcohol, was explosively successful in consistently maintaining such a stealing habit as a fairly regular occurrence … Such as with his ‘Jack Daniels whisky disgrace incident’:
On one particularly disgraceful day, Dennis was drunk on some expensive whiskey from a stolen 40-ounce bottle—and perhaps even while doing some pill-popping. (FYI: He’s abstained 100 percent for some years now, even longer than with his other vices, except his morning mug of coffee.) In a nutshell, during the following four days, he’d find 11 more large bottles of that whiskey stashed in various locations within his residence—most likely hidden in case, somehow, the cops came to his door regarding a certain, fairly-serious matter: Dennis’s OCD combined with the considerable intoxication hampering his judgment-call faculties had him making multiple trips to the liquor store and returning with two, three or even perhaps four of the large bottles (then priced at almost $53 each) in his large duffle-bag. How the staff there failed to spot him during the initial three rounds he made to that store within an approximately 90-minute period, he had no idea and likely never will, he believes.
He did, however, get spotted on the fourth, and obviously final, round but without actually being apprehended; though his memory of it is minimal and foggy, he concluded that somehow he had slipped through the cracks during that instance of mass thievery that one day out of his whole life—i.e. blind drunk luck. But as clearly and considerably spared from what-would’ve-been deserved legal repercussions as he’d apparently been, was perhaps actually for the worse; for, he ended up consuming, albeit in a relatively moderate manner, a lot of fine, charcoal-filtered, Tennessee whiskey, which occurred over some time (a 250 ml glass full at noon-ish everyday).
As for the $60 wallet that he’d found and turned in, it had him thinking about his always-been very-honest brother, when Dennis would tell him someday in a hopeful attempt to gain some rare (though likely non-expressed) respect for the notable, positive change in what his brother had always justifiably perceived as a “lost-moral-cause” aspect of Dennis’s mentality and morality. And, yes, he also told his mother (his father being deceased) about the money, though not for praise but rather in regards to showing cause for some hope, for his soul as well as his corporeal existence, or perhaps even hope for permanently straightening-up other areas of his life.
Dennis, of course, quite typically experienced automatic thoughts about karma and/or the Divine expressing its/their appreciation for his ‘sacrifice’ with some sort of reward (again followed by guilt, embarrassment and shame); though he did also feel that there was no sacrifice truly performed if a zero-sum monetary effect occurs: If he would, for example, inexplicably find three twenties on the ground in the middle of nowhere following the wallet-return occurrence, it would basically mean that he hadn’t really sacrificed anything (i.e. he gave back a $60-filled wallet that might have been his gain had he fled with the loot) but instead received a fiscal find elsewhere of equal amount. What he did with the wallet cash was not really ‘sacrificing,’ for it was not his in the first place, but he still finds $60 in the middle of nowhere with no one anywhere near. So perhaps the opposite of a ‘sacrifice’ occurs, meaning that Dennis would’ve made a net gain.
Whatever, he concluded. No use busting my brains over-analyzing it all. Meanwhile, he could feel the little, white-winged guy ‘whispering’ to him to “never-mind being rewarded.”


Frank G. Sterle, Jr.
White Rock, B.C., Canada