Hmmmm ...
It seems to me that some people might be looking too directly and literally at the idea, so we'll start with the Craft and the Law of Threes:
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What you sow, so also shall you reap. We're all familiar with the phrase in one form or another, but what does this mean? Within the Craft is a sense of Instant Karma, not in the directly literal sense; if you commit arson, life will not take your life merely in a quid pro quo. Rather, if we view the Threefold Law as a practical application, it's possible to see that "What you sow you shall reap three times over" is not as much a threat as it is a practical observation. The classic example is a shoplifter; it seems like a relatively small wrong, but there is a negative of acknowledging the thief's inability to operate honestly to provide for oneself, a raising climate of suspicion which the thief must exist amid, and the raising of prices to cover lost goods, which condition the thief must experience should the thief ever choose a legitimate means of acquisition. The
effects of the thief's wrong do affect the thief.
Which goes a long way to explain social chaos in a certain sense. One need not look to divine retribution to explain it. Rather, as human beings sink into dishonest conduct, there is a simple fact existing that we will have more dishonesty to work with. So while people think in terms of white lies and minor offenses, bendings of the truth, and so forth, the simple fact is that we teach each other that lying and cheating is okay by our very actions. Look at me, for instance: has cussing out our more idiotic posters really accomplished anything for me along the lines of creating civilized debate? Of course not, it has, rather encouraged more duplicity, more egotism, and on occasion what appears to be violent hatred. Whoops.
So it comes down to the fact that I end up having to give Michael Jackson credit for at least one of the philosophies he sang about. Alright? I'll bear my own measure of responsibility, but come on--the conditions at Sciforums are not entirely my fault, and the simple fact is that I keep hearing "Man in the Mirror" over and over when I scroll through its pages. How's that for Instant Karma: meet cruelty with cruelty, meet idiocy with idiocy, and suddenly I have Michael Jackson stuck in my head!
It depends on whether or not a person is satisfied with the sense of retribution. One of my friends who chose her family over common sense--a seemingly noble choice for some--ended up going down as an accessory to murder. She chose the meth-dealing world instead of the happy hippie world I was in. Sure, we may be lazy and just a little ridiculous from time to time, but we don't drive getaway cars for drive-by shootings. You reap what you sew. And, having left a child alone in the world, she is punished for the suffering of her son; she is without him, and when she re-enters the world, he will be a completely different person, and while his sins will hurt her soul, his sins will hurt us all, as well. And then he will get his, in some form, in some way.
I wanted to sleep with strippers and showgirls. I got to. I also lost quite a bit during that period. Money, the respect of my family, and the trust of my friends; it was, in the end, a price we all paid for our little bit of lust.
Life does balance itself out. Just not always to our satisfaction. But there is an equal and opposite reaction, it's just invested in more diverse occasions.
Seriously? My attitude problem? I'll be completely honest with people, but not the way they expect. If I adopt their speech values and moral priorities in order to express myself, I'm not doing so honestly. I measure everything a person tells me about morality according to their standard. That's why I look at the hypocrisies of what people tell me. What works, works, but I must inevitably stop to consider the foundation of what success is. I hear, for instance, that the United States has been successful in its war against terrorism. And to some, they have. These people look and say, "We rolled through Afghanistan", and "We are about to destroy an evil dictator" and other such patriotic ideas. I disagree. I think we're losing the war on terrorism. Why? Well, we have not hunted down and punished bin Laden, and there is some doubt about whether we can actually get our hands on Hussein. But one of the conditions of success was the arrest or recovery of Osama bin Laden, which was promised us by the commander-in-chief of our military forces. Furthermore, as we see from incidents in Georgia and elsewhere, the nation is paranoid and speech is under attack. The suspension of the liberties that cause the US to transcend other nations are threatened by the response to people who would have us pulverize those very freedoms. When I hear that Middle Eastern descent is cause for suspicion, I'd say we're losing the battle. When I read that as many as 5,000 people have been arrested for their ties to terrorism, whose families cannot speak to them, do not know that they're still alive, and who have difficulty obtaining legal counsel, I'm starting to know why we don't have the Muslims in concentration camps the way we had the Japanese in WWII ... the government learned. Detain masses of people
out of public sight. That was the problem then, and the movie
Under Siege basically laid it out for all to see--you cannot do that anymore. And so we arrest them and make them disappear. 5,000 people is still 5,000 people, but it would seem that, by inspiring such tyranny, the terrorists are winning.
It's all a measure of how people measure success or justice. Justice for some is a bomb in the yang of the nearest angry towelhead. Justice for others is a promise that it will never have to come to this again.
In the meantime, who can claim that the United States of America deserves no grief for its actions? Each new mistake compounds the situation further and guarantees that we will have to deal with the situation even longer.
Whether it's a simple word of disrespect between friends, a rift in the family, a crime in the community, or an offense against nations and world,
instant karma is going to get you.
Think of it this way: if you all watch bad television because "it's the only thing on", then bad television is all you're ever going to get.
If we let "boys be boys" and beat each other up regularly on the playground, they will learn that violence is a solution to problems. What we (as a society) sew, so also shall we reap. What we as individuals give, so also shall we receive.
It's not too hard to figure out. I mean, I know it's easy for people to imagine that bad people don't have consciences and can't feel remorse, but this is untrue far more than it's true. We cannot punish Saddam Hussein enough for our satisfaction, however I take certain pleasure in knowing that he sweats for his life every day, that he cannot trust even his own sons. What he has sewn, he has reaped and will continue to reap. It would be enough to say, "He should no longer sew." Others demand that we should be the effect of retribution, that retribution has not come until our egos are satiated.
Everywhere you look you can see this balance at play. It's not too hard to figure out.
Be good to people, and hope for the best from them. Never expect, lest they expect of you. Never demand, lest they demand of you.
Really, it isn't difficult to see. I used to think people were stupid in order to not see it, but then I realized that we have created a society that asks us to ignore such fundamental ideas because this or that other idea is much-better packaged, and glitters with cellophane attraction. What is the style of sickness?
thanx,
Tiassa
