The Criminal Mind

[TomOfSweden]

I can see how you might get to that perspective. I was fortunate to find other avenues when I was unable to find work. I never went hungry and I had several options regarding shelter. So I never had to make that choice.

I'm not sure I had to make that choice. I think the desperation I felt was on an other level than simple starvation.

The difference between us might be that, 1) I was 16 and thought I'd figured it all out. An idiot in other words. 2) I was a real little obnoxious shit who equated the fact that people liked following me around with that what I said had merit.

I also think that I was a bit loony at the time. I'd been under tremendous mental stress for such a prolonged period, that at the time that I was on the brink of snapping. After the state took custody I did have quite a mental break-down of sorts. So chances are that I wasn't well adjusted mentally enough to keep a job even if I wanted to. I'm not sure.

I can't blame anybody else, because most, (if not all) of the shit we did was my ideas. I still remember my biggest issue at the time. I was mostly living in fear that girls would figure out that I wasn't as cool as I was pretending to be. I can't recall a single fraction of a second pondering moral issues. I was just not in that mental space at all. We still did follow certain moral laws, so we weren't completely out of control. It's just that I can't really recall any system to it. Most probably we adjusted our morals according to what we wanted. Some morals where easier to adjust than others, depending on how ingrained they are. It's a theory.

Regarding choices. The thing I liked about crime life was that, there was rules to it I could understand. I'm only talking about logical rules. If you played the game right you got what you wanted....straight away. Grown-up/legit life is a lot more complex.

I was basically living in the streets at the time. Not street streets. I never actually lived in the streets, but I never knew where I'd end up sleeping each night. And I had to hang out with friends every single night, or I'd be sure not to find somewhere to sleep. It makes it very hard to keep to any regular day-time activities, like showing up on time each day to a job. Sure, I could have gone home to my parents at any time. But I thought that sleeping in the streets was better for my well being. And it probably was.

Not having anything stable in life to grab onto can bring the feeling of desperation even though in truth, there's plenty of options.