Saturday, June 28, 2008

The Eternal Scapegoat

A guy gets dumped by his girlfriend and someone says "that's Karma." The man from next-door gets killed in a car crash and the neighbors say "it's Karma." China gets hit by a high-intensity earthquake and someone (like, um, Sharon Stone) says it was brought on by Karma.

I mean, come on.

If this Karma were a person, he'd be the most battered, most abused fall guy by now, and he'd have gone ahead and hung himself to death (a long, long time ago). So let's just give him a break.

Him, her, it, whatever.

It's easy to find someone--or something--to put the blame on when something unpleasant (from poverty to natural calamities to tragedy) rears its ugly head. Let's face it, shit happens and will continue to happen. The fact remains that there are and will always be things beyond our control that it would be futile to look for someone/something to point a finger on.

In the first place, do we even have to?

Bottom-line is: Nature will always be one force impossible to contend with and people will always make mistakes. We make "bad" decisions, give in to our "human" weaknesses, choose the "wrong" paths. And when the consequences of our actions come barging in for all the world to see, the world would say that it's Karma and that we deserve it, which is an outright misconception. But one that would be difficult to counter because we, being human, could be judgmental to a fault.

Until the world gets to understand the complexity of the human brain, until our scientists discover a way to halt the next earthquake or storm, until we all develop the power to see what will happen tomorrow, until we evolve into perfect beings, if perfect means faultless--it would be so much easier to point at something that would make sense to things that don't seem to make sense.

Hence, the ubiquitous line: "it's Karma."

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