Fun insights from when my wallet got stolen !

[Paul-from-France]

a festival of spiral dynamics ; overcoming phobias ; how perception is biased and more practical stuff

 

So the story starts with two drops of red in a sea of orange. I was going home for lunch in a crowded tramway, typical so far, when I suddenly feel like someone might be trying to open the front pocket of my backpack. First time : benefice of the doubt, second time : I move sideways slightly but let's not get paranoid here, third time : I reach for the bag with my hand and felt that the pocket had been opened. I take a look inside, wallet is gone, but then again there's so much useless junk in there so I look again, still no wallet. So it's time to ask around. Sir, have you seen anything ? ...no. Ma'am did you see someone take my wallet ? Oh no no no no ! And so on until the next stop at which point two guys go out of the tramway and right then a herd of at least half of dozen people stormed at me yelling hysterically, pointing fingers, "it was them ! It was those two !! we saw who stole from you ! We saw ! We saw everything but we were so scared !!! " Anyway, what followed that first wave of accusations was an avalanche of name calling and excuses. Classic orange. Beautiful. Also a classic example of group behavior in the sense that everybody wants to call out the robbers but no one will be the first to do so. If one person rises up then the whole tramway rises up. If no one will speak first then everyone chooses to stay quiet. Plus afterwards they were all faking compassion, widely exaggerating how sorry they feel. On the other hand, we have to give some respect to the red behavior here : for having the guts to commit a felony in plain view fully aware of the fact that people will be too scared to mumble any words. Reds aren't stupid at all.

When I told that story to a police officer, he had a very blue reaction while the reaction from the insurance company was very green. Both came from a collective ethos : this is about the good of the community. Both expressed disgust towards the egotistical behavior of the passengers.  The distinction was subtle and very insightful. The police officer got angry listening to that tale of selfishness, he then went on and on about justice, sticking together, evil happening to good people and how discouraging crime is to productive law-abiding citizens ; choking on words that a representative of the state isn't supposed to utter. On a smoother level, the woman from the insurance company didn't get angry, she was sad. Genuinely so. She ended up talking about togetherness, on the ability to trust one another, the fact that perpetrators are victims of themselves and how the world could be better. It was fun !

A few points outside of spiral dynamics now. You'll tell us how it is in your country but in France : you might feel like you exist, but do you have the papers that prove you indeed exist ? Without an ID card you do not exist. In order to redo your papers you need to go to the city hall but you need your ID card to go into the city hall. I eventually got in and have been told to gather papers that prove that my mother is my mother, papers that prove that I was indeed born at some time. Here's the most hilarious : no wallet means no cash, no credit card and no ticket for the tramway but I still needed to use the tramway to get to work but the inspectors were in so I attempted to communicate human to human with them. Well that was in vain but it was kinda cool to witness : Hi I don't have a ticket because my wallet got stolen earlier. Sir, please present your ticket. I don't have one, my wallet was stolen. Sir, you need to buy a ticket right now. I can't, my wallet has been robbed. Sir, if you can't present a ticket I will have to give you a fine. I can't pay your fine and I need to get to work. Sir, are you able to present the paper that says your wallet got stolen ? This is endless. I walked.

Same deal at every grocery store : no wallet no food. Fortunately I have an old checkbook but in order to pay with a check the lovely cashier asks for your ID. Endless I tell you.

 

This is getting very long already, I wanted to get into how I am usually neurotically averse to conversations over the phone but when it came to defending my ego suddenly that phobia had disappeared. Really cool to notice. Similarly,  I'm never fully relaxed around authority figures but that day I went into the police station like I absolutely owned the place. That was weird to say the least.

Also it's worth pointing out that the two guys were caucasians fake anarchists living off the welfare state but that real fact did not stop a very old man to grab my shoulder to tell me " It was the arabs ! they were arabs ! I saw ! It's always the arabs !!!" No, they weren't. Not that it would matter anyway. How often do we physically see what we subjectively want to see ? How biased does one have to be so that the vision will get literally distorted to create a sight that confirms one's belief ? Fascinating old man.

 

So anyways, I guess a lot of the motivation for that post was just my ego acting like a sad little boy because a big bad bad guy did something unfair.

Reality is neither fair nor unfair, it just is. The sermon on the mount was on my mind a lot that day, we can get into that if you want.

 

Thanks for reading and have a great day !