KARMA IS A BITCH

But I do know. Because the woman I described knew. Because her family, in the person of the father, was embedded in the mess-dealing that is “healthcare” (& did not have her back, either; “the system” that buttered the bread trumped the daughter). And, because of some other aspects specific to this particular woman, but mostly because that woman had a big bottle of anger-joy on her shelf. Fierce woman. Very intelligent woman. Had to fight, thru crippling pain, every step of the way – & I saw how she handled, corrected, redirected “doctors” in the ER, many times. She ran circles round those dumb sonsabitches – & they didn’t like it, her, saving her own life from the false moves, the iatrogenic-in-waiting moves, they wanted to make (how dare she?).

The point is what is this longing for & respite taken in something like karma about? And that point is that it is a sop, a bribe, a diversion, a shortcut from/to numbed out nowhere.

“You’ll get yours,” somehow, someday misconstrues mightily. It is an attempt at self-soothing by, at least often enough, people that have been harmed but that have no recourse but to “the gods,” or to Einstein’s friendly, rather than hostile, universe (leaving aside his muddled contention about “deciding to believe” – not to mention the inapplicability of anthropomorphizing nature).

Nature – “the universe” – is not even, cannot be, indifferent – but that’s the word closest to how it operates. And the disconnection from here & now, from this cause to this directed / effect – in this life which is the only context there is for each life – is the epitomy of reaching that exceeds grasping.

But these graspless reaches have always had sellers offering to fill those begging hands.

Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people.

I’ve known some very bad people who suffered no justice, or very little, got away with all kinds of things, & did not die until old age.

How many babies are murdered in utero each year?

To set such facts aside in favor of “other contexts” spun from the whole fairycloth of past/future lives is reaching for the rationale that feels better good enough for s/he & Bobby McGee. And that is evasion of personal responsibility, logic, reasoning.

To lean on “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” & jump to the conclusion that via karma the murdered babies set that fire somewhere back in a previous life is just scapegoating the victim.

Life is bounded, has a beginning & an end, & refusal to respect the boundaries is trespass against self & others – no matter how good, or less anxious/painful it may feel &/or is subsidized to be “socially” acceptable or imposed/demanded.

Random chance & timing is most significant. The configuration of one’s conception, where & when born are the largest part of the pie. Luck – more timing & placing – good & bad, is also significant. What’s left after those is the sliver-slice that in conjunction with those, under influence of those, a person comports & operates.

I knew a guy who had been born into a Catholic family. An overt actor type (he quit school, went to Hollywood to be a star, didn’t get that far, sold cars…that whole song), he convinced his family to convert to one of the Protestant sects. Because it was “obvious”- as was the pride he took in leading the conversion. He answered my hypothetical in the affirmative, that yes, had he been born in a yurt in outer Mongolia he would still have arrived at the one true Protestant sect. I did not see the point in asking if he would have successfully converted his Mongolian family, too.

There is a code of ethics. Just the a priori one. And that defines, informs, constrains ~”a wo/man’s got to know the limitations” – some Clint Eastwood character ~ this life passage. Would it were that the a priori fleshed out more passages than it does. But it never has & it never will. A lot of flesh is indeed weak.

Beside that a priori is the weight of the mass that matter-of-course violates that a priori & so brings cost/benefit calcs into equation.

Something should be done, would be correct to do, but you are vastly outnumberd & surrounded & if one little mistake is made the consequence might be life in prison.

Some are in prison for living the a priori, many others are caged for denying the a priori, so if you go into prison, you’ll be even more closely surrounded, & with fewer options for dealing.

What do you do? It depends. Context. Skills. Risk appetite. Value subjectivity. Maybe it’s worth it, even if it does go sideways. Maybe there’s really no choice at all, no matter how it goes after business is taken care of. Person by person & case by case.

Justice is ostensibly highly valued. Movies & written stories depicting justice meted out, distributed-decentralized all the way down to & amongst the ones actually involved, are popular.

But in the real world justice, like competiton, is compressed into artificial scarcity, & people say “you can’t take justice into your own hands…or sell lemonade from roadside stands.”

And if someone does DIY, & is caught up by the all-surrounding monopolists & their near infinite Lilipution minions, these same people who like the hero, or anti-hero movies & stories also like to get their schadenfreude on & take delight in “who does s/he think s/he is?”

Like the shitshow surrounding that kid in Milwaukee. Or that couple defending their property in St. Louis. Or even steno-men in the womens’ pool.

Between the monopoly, & all its schizo asylum dwellers, loved &/but really more hated justice is hard to get.

So is there a way to hate it when it counts & matters & love it “later” when it doesn’t count or matter?

Yeah.

All you have to do is dream up a justice that takes everybody off the personal responsibility, logic & reason hook, passes the buck, which dreamworks have been done & which is called “karma.”

So no I don’t do everything I’d like, lots of scores have gone unsettled, justice is denied by my cost-benefit calcs, but I have done & do what I can. Because it matters to me. Because it’s true fact reality…not a philosophy or religion. I regret the open entries the same way I’d regret doing a poor job in some other domain, but I don’t “deal” with that regret by invoking deus ex machina.

The a priori is me (thee just the same). It’s mine, that me – my property, nobody else’s. The satellites I produce or acquire are also mine. The fact that I, & thee, satellites too, are besieged, are loaded down with parasites doesn’t alter the a priori.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWIDp2Uyb-8