I try to be an ethical thief, people admire Robin Hood, right? I'm not stealing to sell it, or buy drugs or be bad. It's just that my wages don't buy clothes and a roof and heating and pay all the taxes and bills. There are guys a block away that pull 300 an hour when I scrape 10. How are they worth 30 times more than me? Seriously? So I steal. I take the cheapest thing that will do the job and I feed my kids. It ain't luxury; it's survival and if you don't like it you can stick it because I do what I gotta do.
I was born for the love-nexus but society is a socially darwinistic money-nexus. We evolved for cooperation and support, we got competition and emotional indifference. I became a thief because I had no other way to live right. I'm not going to live as a slave in some mildew apartment. I have more self respect than that.
I have a right to dignity, but that comes with a huge price tag these days. Maybe I should be all composed and have self esteem some other way. I guess with all that love and care I got in those cheap-ass daycare centres and schools that treat you like an enemy from day one, I should have some resilient core. Maybe it's all excuses; I really don't know. All I know is that when I put on them nice clothes from them nice stores I feel like I might get some respect at least. It ain't love, but it ain't being given them shifty looks that say folks are scared of me cos I'm poor. I like that. I like it a lot. So I walk in all casual like and take it. Self esteem the easy way. Maybe one day I can shoot for more, something real, I damn well hope so.
They call it theft, I say it's ethical redistribution. I'm not going in noone's house, not beating on old ladies or pulling knives - I just do my thing, flow along, enjoy the day and stuff finds me. It's weird like that. But those ones in the suits they don't see it from where we are, that all these stores are their oasis, their bounty, but for us it's a mirage in the desert, cruel. We can see all that stuff we need, our kids too, but it might as well not be there at all. How would them suit people like to wake up and see only cheap unhealthy shit on the shelves and no decent clothes, cos that's our life. When does stealing become something else; I'd say when it's filling a real need. That's all I do, peaceful facilitating of providing for urgent needs. It's the fifth emergency service.