I am not a fun person at all, especially when it comes to my sense of righteousness.
Not saying that I am perfect. The truth is, I am far from being a saint. I have sinned. I had made quite a few mistakes and the most serious one would probably haunt me forever. The stain made me loathe myself so much that I hated to look myself in the eyes, in the mirror and I called myself a bitch, as I really deemed myself one. Once.
When my friend Yaney stole the glass from the bar and presented it as a birthday gift for my buddy Donnie, I had a heated debate with Ronald, who had had a crush on Yaney the very first day they met. Ronald and Donnie are roommates and both of them are my best friends, even though they don't really get along.
I: Don't be mistaken, dude. I love Yaney. But I just don't make out why someone can steal something and present it as a gift?
R: Come on, you should let up. It's just a gift; a mug from the bar is a cool gift. You don't get that every day, do you?
I: It's cool all right. But it's someone else's property. You take it without the consent of the owner, that's stealing.
R: Donnie seems to love the gift and he thinks the mug from the bar is way so cool that he appreciates it. Isn't it the most important thing? To send a gift that pleases the Bday boy?
I: There are a lot of ways and gifts that can make Donnie happy. Trust me. Just because the gift is special, it doesn't justify the act of stealing and the fact that this booty is the trophy to show off the theft.
R: Aww, Jewel, you are taking this too seriously.
I: Imagine an infertile woman who wants a baby so badly that her husband presents her a stolen fetus for her as a Bday gift to please her. That is stealing.
R: But what we are talking about is a beer mug. It's not a life-concerning matter here. Why makes the fuss about it?
I: Stealing is stealing. Petty theft is still stealing. You perceive the notion of butterfly effect, then you know what small things can change the whole picture.
R: Boy, you are really no fun. Don't be so narrow-minded...
I: Narrow-minded? What fun would it be to have a stolen loot as a gift? Think about it, if anyone disregard right and wrong, there's nothing wrong for the grave robber to present the jewels (s)he robbed as a gift to the beloved one. Without the sense of right and wrong, or righteousness, it's no biggy for a secretive rapist to shower his real-life wifey with the souvenir he gets from those he raped.
R: Those are different stories. They are real crime. This is a small thing we are talking about. No one is getting hurt. Nobody is going to get upset of a stolen beer mug!
I: You are not the bar owner, how can you tell? Besides, there's an ancient Chinese saying that goes, "the one that stole the gourd when young turns to steal the cow when old."
This conversation and the discrepancy between our reasonings have haunted me for days. Ronald is a good person; he was honest with when he told me that he didn't stop petty theft committed by his friend in the supermarket even though his friend's deeds made him uncomfortable and shameful.
We have our differences. That's perfectly all right with me. In this case, I guess we are both biased in a way.
Ron's crush on Yaney blinded him in a way so that he tried to persuade me to cut Yaney some slacks. His reason was, stealing a beer mug from the bar is a petty theft; plus, people like Yaney and his countrymen have been through war and difficult times, so perhaps what is considered as theft has varied definition and is not the same story for them.
In a way, I was biased as well. I was kind of holding grudge against Yaney. Deep down I blamed Yaney for lying to me and ignoring me. We parted the day earlier when he walked away with Sara to go search for Donnie's birthday. Sara, whom I met for the first time the very day Yaney and I participated in a conference, totally ignored me and chatted with Yaney straight ahead when we walked along on green street till we parted. That was very rude for me, especially when we just met and there were only three of us walking parallel on the pavement. Later on, more and more, I felt that Sara did that because she had sort of mistaken me as her romance opponent. She too, like Ron, probably had a thing for Yaney, who has a girlfriend back at home. All the while I was perhaps the imaginary enemy for Sara. Moreover, Yaney lied to me when he said that he would spend the afternoon finding Donnie's gift when exactly he spent the whole time drinking with Sara. When I found what actually happened, I figured, no wonder he would steal the mug before he left the bar for Donnie's apartment. The trust is damaged, so was the sincerity of gift-finding. I've always valued Yaney's creativity, but stealing just cannot justify this act of improvisation.
Petty theft is still theft, as far as I am concerned; someone plundering even an empty purse as it may be, s/he is still considered a plunderer. That is exactly my sense of righteousness.