To rotting souls...

ID theft is rampant and recurring to the point of being non-news. Now I'm a statistic too. Someone used my amazon.com account to clean me out. How did they get all the infos? No idea. But I've spent the day watching the emails roll in from around the globe telling me what wondrous goods I've purchased. Now all of my accounts are frozen and I'm getting on a plane to go to a city that doesn't have any branches of my bank. All the money spent by my thieving co-humans will not be reimbursed until the case is solved. There are many more complications and implications, I needn't go into them. In short, I'm screwed by a stranger and the Xmas carols jingle merrily on.

Indeed the world is changing. If life were Photoshop, I'd say that the levels and the saturation have been pushed way, way up. Lately, global events have taken on a mythic psychological richness. The curtain of unshakable normalcy has tattered and fallen. Every act is revealed to its unalterable core - the stakes have escalated, good and evil slap against each other like ocean waves in a man-made inlet. Are we out for ourselves, or can we find a headspace that includes our neighbor? The battle rages. Can you feel it?

To the person or people who stole my identity, you have my name, you might be inclined to Google me, you might find this post, so let me tell you that I feel sorry for you. I don't know what motivated these acts - boredom, thrill-seeking, a yearning for bizarre Chinese items, low self-esteem, an anarchistic credo, who knows. I'm offended that this dumb, hurtful act is your offering to me, one human to another, and worse, your offering to a society in decay. Do you pine for an ending? Is this the meaning of your contribution?

Believe me when I tell you, my little thief, you picked an odd victim. I know what it's like to be angry at the world and to think, I'm gonna get my share now of what's mine. My anger takes a different form, it gets internalized and makes me feel slightly paralyzed and overwhelmed at times. But you have shown great promise in your ability to take action and to survive. You are exploiting a fallible and deeply flawed system and surrounding yourself with material rewards. You might even feel some kind of victory. Is it great? Will you write or call and tell me how it makes you feel? I deserve this at the very least, don't I?

OK, too late to continue. Thief, I sincerely hope that guilt will plague you like an endless nightmare until you consider the impact of your actions. Use your creative skills to improve this hellish earth.

(PS: I'll bet Dick Cheney uses Amazon too...)