Why Karma Truly is a Deceitful Bitch

Some things in this world are pretty self-evident. The sun rises in the morning, we breathe air and the grass is green. Pepper goes with salt, friends are the opposite of enemies, and doing the right thing always pays off in the end.. wait, that last one is actually not all that true. At least not from what I've seen so far, and that's what I want to talk to you about. Karma is, as the saying goes, a bitch.

In my ideal world, hard work is rewarded, and good things pay huge dividends compared to bad things. It should never pay off to choose the wrong path, on purpose. In fact, that's where the mystical order of the world should naturally step in, and bad things should never happen to good people. If only the world we live in was that predictable and logical.. but it's not. Let me walk you through a.. hypothetical example, that happened to.. a neighbor of mine:

Josh was an even-tempered, nice guy who always tried his hardest to please everyone, and to always do the right thing. He overexerted himself to stay on the right path, to be just, and to always follow his strong and deeply rooted principles and morals. He never lied, never tried drugs, or even smoked a cigarette.. and he made sure that his younger brother, uhmm.. Peter.. was always taken care of, no matter how screwed up the rest of his family was. And Josh felt pretty good about this, and was sure that in the end, when push would come to shove and people were to count their marbles (no more metaphores, please), they'd remember the good and right things he'd done, and count him among the select few, among the good guys. That was all he wanted, and except for this the random acts of kindness and helpfulness were all out of selflessness and appreciation for his fellow man.

One day Josh got a true slap in the face, from nowhere. He was going about his business, studying hard for finals and trying to get good grades and finish group projects, in addition to being sociable and hanging out with friends before break. Suddenly, on a Friday before his big tests, he was told that he'd been implicated in something not only big, but of such a nature that he couldn't believe it.. he'd been thoroughly framed for someone else's wrongdoings, simply due to being the perfect sacrificial lamb. Through being the straight arrow that never stood out as anything bad, he'd now been turned into the ultimate scapegoat for other people's inconvenience. In return, the people that had framed him, the people claiming more intensely than ever that he HAD to be the perpetrator, got to sleep soundly at night imagining that they'd found the right guy to blame. When break came around, they all left campus for home, all making themselves believe that their long-fought struggle had now ended, that their ugly chapter had been closed. What they never seemed to consider, though, was Josh' innocence, and the fact that not only was their choice of person to pin the blame on not guilty, he had never done anything mean or evil in his entire life. He did, truly, not even know fully what he had been blamed so thoroughly for, and was now sentenced not only to roam the States for Christmas without any friends to keep in touch with, he had now lost his faith in humanity.

People never seize to amaze me. I have always believed that people jump to conclusions way too fast, and almost every time that is based on really, really faulty information as well as the group effect. The group effect, in Josh' example, refers to the witch hunt process that starts with an intense need to find someone to blame, escalates with someone's ingenious mentioning of a good scapegoat, and ends in everyone reinforcing the belief that they must be right by only discussing their finding with each other, inside the group. If the people in the above example had, at any time, taken the time to not just concoct little schemes internally in the group, fueled by the need for drama, but actually talk to any single one of Josh' friends and close ones, the idea would be dismissed at once.

People are consistent, if nothing else. We have our set ways, our character, and we stick to it. That means, in Josh' case, that it wasn't just unlikely that he'd ever do anything hurtful to other people, nor would he ever scheme, lie, or gossip in any way. By not taking his character and moral values, and their personal experience of his personality, into account when considering his guilt, the group of 'friends' that ultimately decided to try to break him down acted on the weakest of all possible foundations: convenience.

The saddest part of the above example is the character of the people deciding to frame Josh. Not only did they not know Josh very well, obviously, but they were also perfectly content with sacrificing someone whom they've only seen do good and helpful things. At one point, Josh told me, his best friend in the group had also been sold the perfect scapegoat idea, and it took less than a second for her to buy into it.. probably due to the sheer number of people that had already told each other that they thought he was the guy. The best friend, now corrupted and becoming nothing more than a weak tool for the Blame Party to utilize, then proceeded to try to 'lure' and set up Josh by hinting that she was a huge fan of whoever had carried out the original crime. Josh, although baffled and scared by the thought, started suspecting his best friend of being the real McCoy, although he never brought this to anyone's attention before he was in the crap to over his head. When he was then informed that the people he had trusted and leaned on the most were in fact just as brainwashed and hateful as the rest, Josh was out of options, out of ways to defend himself. Without real proof of someone else being the perp, his former friends left campus thinking they could now sleep soundly, and that justice had been served. Little did they know, or care, that the innocent guy now framed was left back at school with no way to prove the truth that now only he believed in.

Karma might not follow the rules of the road, or any other rules for that matter. But truth still does, and it has a way of emerging just as we think it will never come forth. And when it does, when truth sees daylight again, Josh will be there, still hurt and still disappointed, waiting for his apologies. But in the long run, in the end, apologies can never mend this incredible misjudgement of character. Best friends will never be best friends again, and friends will never be friends. Some things, some betrayals, are too much for any relationship to bear. In the end, only justice can heal the wounds now inflicted by people hungry for a quick fix and with a disregard for the actual truth. In the end, justice will be served.

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Too often are bad things like lies, deceit, infidelity (cheating), gossip, violence, psychological terror/abuse and other crap rewarded by people everywhere. I see guys cheating and lying, only to be either taken back or kept around in some other form. For the rest of us, who never would even think to breach the trust and hurt a girl like that, this seeming injustice is not only unfair, but sad. The concept of karma, being that of good people being rewarded by good things happening in their lives and vice versa, is not always applied by people around us. This has its reasons, and sometimes the circumstances are mediating, but some ultimate bad acts should still consistently be followed by bad repercussions, or the good acts will all lose their meaning and inherent goodness. If a cheater is taken back after cheating and is shown the same amount of love, what is the point in staying faithful? If a liar is forgiven time after time, why ever speak the truth? If someone who breaks every girl's heart through pure disregard for anything but his own feelings, is not only kept around and held in the same regard as the good guys, but even regarded higher despite this, what is the point in ever doing the right thing or treating the opposite sex with respect and dignity?

It is through the consistent support and forgiveness of evil that it prospers, and by this mechanism how the good acts and intentions lose their meaning. If bad is treated like good, what is the difference? In a perfect world, we would all shun the bad guys and girls, the heart breakers, liars and cheaters, the people who don't care, and make sure they don't get to feed on the positive energy of good things like friendships or attention. We would make the good our standard, and make sure that we make our own karma. Karma is mostly a human made concept, after all, where we through reward and punishment of good and bad deeds make sure justice prevails, and where we make sure our lives contain an abundance of the pure kind of good.

Labels: Era Summaries, Major Updates, Personal Issues, Philosophy, Rants

posted by CK @ 23:12