Arson

I'm honestly not sure what would drive a person to such a destructive act. I don't know what's going through their mind as they do what they do, and I don't know what they believe they are accomplishing by the act. I think that's definitely for the best. Arson is wrong, like any other crime of course, but it is unique in the fact that those who commit it don't seem to gain anything of substance from it. Alright, that's not entirely true, there is of course the insurance fraud approach that many indeed do financially benefit from, but other than that, or possibly revenge, I think it is an act that is largely one of anarchistic malice. I think arsonists, and I'm sorry to use the cliché, are people that just want to watch the world burn. I'm not an expert in psychology, but I would assume that they obtain a sense of admiration of beauty at the sight of flames engulfing whatever they are destroying. I'm not going to deny that there isn't a certain beauty to fire, but that's not the part that concerns me. Camp fires are beautiful, candles are beautiful, and fireworks are certainly beautiful as well, but burning, say, a building to the ground is an act fueled by the desire for destruction, the desire for mayhem, and the complete and utter disregard of all things decent and sane. I've heard that many arsonists are consumed by this desire to destroy because they don't know any other way to get their frustrations out. That they see burning structures to the ground as the only reasonable outlet is extremely disturbing in and of itself. I know that quite recently in my hometown, there was a string of fires around the downtown area that many people suspected were acts of arson. While I'm not sure if the authorities ever actually caught whoever was responsible, I can certainly see why people thought what they did. It was when I was first confronted with an actual possibility of acts of arson that I realized why such a crime is truly despicable. Those buildings weren't simply the materials that they were made of. They were so much more than that. Those buildings contained within them countless memories that were burnt to the ground with them. People had built their lives in those structures, and while they were vacant at the time they burnt down, that doesn't change the fact that the flames incinerated so much more than just the raw building materials. I don't understand arson, and I don't think I ever will, but that's because I'm just not a screwed up person. I don't see beauty in the destruction of the world around me, and I never will.