lemon_says

I'll grant I watch entirely too many crime programs. Real crime, fake crime--I'm currently on a Criminal Minds kick, as they are running all the episodes in order on ION network at night and there are worse ways to go to sleep than watching Shemar Moore furrow his brow--crime documentaries, whatever. Pip claims my biggest obsession is bizarre diseases, but that's not necessarily true. I also have a thing about crime, and I've wondered why I didn't do something with that, something useful. (I have a thing with being aware of my own lack of usefulness, don't I? Yes, I know that.)

Sometimes, though, I watch these things and I wonder if sometimes there isn't some comfort in being the nutcase, the scariest person out there. If you know you're the sniper, does that provide some insulation from the evils of the world? Are you less likely to get mugged or burgled if you're the serial killer?

No, I'm not going on a spree or anything. Given my overdeveloped sense of justice and gruesome conscience I'd make a terrible criminal. I just wonder if people could lose their conscience first, or the conscience is a casualty of some more pragmatic motivation.