Writingbolt's Creation

****

Get ready for another one of my potential philosophical breakthroughs.

Life…is a crime.

[Actually, I’m pretty sure this isn’t a new statement…and that I’ve touched on this, before. I have a comic-strip panel, which I like to reuse, to prove it.]

Well, it must be…

…considering…

There are SO many crime stories filling the space and time of our lives. If it’s not a crime report on the local news, there’s one of a dozen “new” shows featuring some cop squad or policing-government-organization-with-an-acronym-for-the-title. And, if the new material–cough–isn’t enough, there are plenty of channels showing streams upon floods of the shows that already ran, caught the crooks and bailed.

Any recent/current show that isn’t crime-related seems to last maybe eight episodes before it’s thrust into reruns or a seasonal “finale,” already; that’s pathetic. Crime shows never stop running. Apparently, there is an ocean of material to pump, but how many ways can you cover the same damn crimes? There are only so many types of wrong. You either assault someone, murder them, abduct someone or try to take someone’s money/property. And, there are only so many ways to pursue those cases. You could cover them all in one season of one show. But, there is so much time to fill for all the writers suffering from mental block!

What never makes sense to me is how anyone draws entertainment or pleasure from all of that. You find enjoyment in (others) solving or resolving crime? Then get out there and DO that! Maybe we’d have “cleaner” lives if we put a stop to or just didn’t commit those crimes. Are we “safe” by filling our time watching others commit and resolve crimes? Does televised crime make the world more peaceful?

I suspect people desperately need to fill their heads with solutions to problems. In school, I recall wishing I had a “cheat code” to get through my classes, some days. And, there were some out there, if you could get your hands on them. I guess, as adults, we need other means to convince our aging heads that problems can be solved; so we turn to these crime shows, in which someone else solves the problems. Yet, must every problem smell alike? Must every crime involve violence and, often, death?

Does seeing someone catch a murderer help you figure out a financial struggle? It doesn’t help me, at all. If I am struggling with a History assignment, seeing someone find a solution to a Math problem isn’t going to make my struggle any easier.

I consider myself a Sherlock-Holmes fan, but I can only stomach so much of his antics before I need a break. I don’t need to watch him every day or week (although I did get a little hooked on a silly animated version). I certainly do not need to see Sherlock Hawaii, Denver and L.A. Nights. That’s overkill. Don’t even get me started on how many versions of Scooby-Doo, a show about a big dog and some oddly dressed young adults running around with costumed crooks, there have been. ‘Longest running animated series; I wonder why.

Advertisers, particularly those featured on talk shows, which are multiplying like gremlins, like to tell you how some bargain, dropping an inflated retail price to something more sensible for a cheaply made import that’s only a passing-fad item, anyway, is a steal. That’s just asking for crime.

Every Christmas season, the Grinch gets promoted or discussed in some way. His whole story is about stealing the goods. His only competition for most referenced holiday character might be Scrooge, from A Christmas Carol, and the latter was criminal for how he treated others until he was given a forced sentence of spiritual intervention.

If what they say about government is true, we’re practically ruled by a faulty system.

Heck, even the wild creatures around us are prone to stealing from each other.

So, when you’re done with all of that, how do you have any time or breath left to live a respectable life? Can you? I’d say the ultimate test of this life is remaining “straight.” But, you’d have to be a saint above many other saints to pull that off…and is it worth it? Heaven knows.

I’m gonna get a lil dark for a moment. Maybe…people who end their own life are just trying to go on the lam or get out of jail (free). Ya think? Maybe it’s the only way to escape all the criminal madness. If this world is a prison, how do you get out? If everyone around you is potentially criminal, how can you be anything but crooked?

Now, if anyone takes what I just said seriously and ends their own life, you can consider me guilty of giving you the idea. Cuff me and throw away the key. But, I already feel like I’m wearing striped pajamas. So, what would that really do?

I’m just one, among the many, living a day in the life of some Russian prisoner who survived by fashioning a scrap of metal into a pocket knife so he could ration his bread and fish-bone soup when he wasn’t cleaning floors and dodging scuffles with his fellow inmates. [If you know the book, you get the reference. And, if you don’t, well you just didn’t go to the same criminal high school.]