Revisiting Sin:Reimplementing Law

You know, I've always been an advocate of not doing things merely in principal of the fact they're ought to be done.  Gut over Law, that's always been my moral compass.  But recently I came across a chip of wisdom quite inadvertent-yet most fortuitous-ly.
When downloading music first came into practice, it came so via Napster.  Ahh, yes...that Taboo reference whose feeble though honorable attempt at vindicating its name never could absolve of it its immoral provisions.  Unfortunately for the entertainment industry, it came at a time JUST as I started to listen to music at all.  So needless to say, I had no developed practice of buying CDs [or cassettes, more time-appropriately] but rather relished in my hours of free radio tunes [to the disgust of all 'real music' listeners].


Therefore, I could not understand why I would need to buy music when it's seemingly free.  So I downloaded.  Excuse me, 'stole'. [When asked if you've ever stolen anything, how often do you think to respond with 'music?'] At the end of my high school years, I mustered up a puny library of about 400 songs.


Ended up getting a laptop in college, but had a Kazaa-uncompliant internet connection.  So, I bought.
But in doing so, it made my purchasing ways VERY selective. And fine, yes, some degree was probably due to my parsimonious Indian heritage; but the point is I stuck with the buying principal both because I knew it was considered 'wrong' to steal [not to mention studded with threats of lawsuits by this point] and simply just found it more convenient. So for the last five years, I have been conscious-free of music-looting ever since.


Until last week, that is.  A classmate mentioned the 'new thing' called Limewire, and how easy it was!  All of MJ's songs, downloaded just the previous night.  I came home and thought I had to give it a shot. [tunes have been pretty hot recently, right?  Rude boy, Justin Bieber..I mean come on you're so with me.] And can I tell you?


Oh, my, god. The simplicity with which I could download these songs all of a sudden--MULTIPLE at a time--suddenly felt SO, UNNERVINGLY, wrong!  Meaning it was literally like stealing candy from a baby.  Five years of buying a song or two every month only because I couldn't get it out of my head before bed for 3 nights or so and suddenly THIS?  Ladies and gentlemen, I have eaten from the fruits of what I naively identify as the blackmarket.


And what happened?  What you think you think happened?  I removed it from my computer.  Why?  Because if I didn't, it was inevitable I was going to LOSE the sense of righteousness I've somehow, even if inadvertently, incorporated in my moral conscience.  And that was not something I had a desire to do.


That, my friend [or lack thereof, I don't think anyone reads these things...] is where my current right and wrong beliefs took a shot in the kidney...
I suddenly felt something was wrong that I would have previously told you never struck me in the gut as unjust.  Even though, mind you, I was always TOLD it was wrong.


And that's my lesson I want to share with you too.  Evidently, everything doesn't have to be intrinsically classified as right or wrong at any given moment or time in your life.  Righteousness, one, can be ACQUIRED.  It can be LEARNED.  But two, and just if not more importantly, it can ALSO be SUFFOCATED.  A sense of righteousness, we'd all superficially say 'no duh', can be conditioned out as well.  About anything.  Skip a line enough, and you'll quickly stop feeling guilty at all.  Steal a few bucks here and there, then steal a wallet.


Download a dozen songs or so, and untroublingly (I like it, ok?).. Steal a 1000.


So maybe, just maybe, over time our exuberant and prideful youth [and the subsequent radical thinking that comes with it] can start to think, "Hey, I don't know it all.  Maybe the fact this law or this principal has been handed down for hundreds of years should prompt SOME suspicion truth may exist in its stem though, yes, I myself in all my glory may just not understand at this time."


Now look, I'm not saying listen to everything you're told, and don't drink before 21 and don't get high because...why exactly?...or several of these other debatable things.  Clearly [because you're my imaginary friend, and I've made you know me that well].  What I AM saying is, it's news to me that universal truths--those of the Greek-referenced 'nomos'--though omnipresent does NOT mean it is omni-EXTRACTABLE.


Be open.  Understand you don't understand everything.  Give at the very least a respectful benefit of the doubt for practices with longevity far greater than the years you could unitarily exist for.  I will.


And for your medical tidbit of the post, with age comes a decrease in cerebral elasticity [and thus your soil].  Which WILL inevitably at some point make you obstinately unreceptive to change of thinking or mind.  Yes I appreciate adverbs and yes  you will essentially and quite literally be 'locked into' your beliefs.  And thus, I ask you, would you want to be locked in for your last respected years as wise old folk, or the insensible fool?  Act now, or forever hold your belief.