Priorities and Karma

Why is life unfair? I never had a satisfactory answer to that question. The answer I maintained was that it was all a result of karma. If you add up all the misdeeds or ill-will over an individual's innumerable lifetimes, isn't it only a matter of time before a big chunk of life becomes trials and tribulations? It was an acceptable answer in that it was plausible, but it was also a shallow answer because I couldn't find the psychological pattern at an individual level that translated into unfairness on a societal level. In other words, what was the stuff that was happening on an everyday level in the mind of average Joe that could explain why society was so "messed up".

In a moment of clarity, I thought the answer came to me. It was deeper than the assumption of misdeeds and intense ill-will towards others. It was something more basic that is taken for granted everyday by everyone: the order of priority for the three most basic values of identity. These three basic values are generosity, industriousness and intelligence. From a moral standpoint, the most important thing is to be generous (or kind), the second most important thing is to work hard, and the third most important is being smart. But experience teaches us that the real world rewards intelligence above all, rewards hard work somewhat, and doles out the least rewards, materially and in terms of prestige, for generosity. Of course, many people possess all three values: they're recognized by their peers as intelligent, hard working, generous people. However, the issue at hand is not having all three; it is their prioritization that sets the stage for karmic consequences.

A simple thought experiment is telling. Consider someone telling you that in exchange for your sacrificing some IQ points, you would be guaranteed to be an inherently more generous person (or a harder worker by nature). Would your immediate reaction be affirmative? More likely, you would freeze momentarily, and then proceed to reason through the consequences of such a decision. For the purposes of this discussion, it's the momentary freeze that is the important part, not the mental debate that follows. What is that momentary freeze about? It's quite simple. When you're asked that question, a snap scan of your conscience tells you that the 'right' choice (the moral one) is to choose generosity over intelligence. But your instinct to surrender to generosity is immediately overtaken by a pressing concern. I'll sum up that concern frankly: What if I get fucked? What if, as a result of my noble act of sacrificing intelligence for generosity, I eventually get fucked because I'm not as sharp as I used to be? That's the freeze: the tug of your generous instinct on one side against the tug of your ego on the other, the ego being the voice of pride that's afraid of getting fucked.

That freeze indicates the sin for which humanity must pay. Everyday, everywhere, all the time, people constantly prioritize their intelligence over generosity and hard work in ways both subtle and explicit. This individual prioritization en masse leads society at large to value intelligence over hard work, which are both in turn valued over generosity.

We could come with up plenty of examples where an individual or society rewards intelligence over generosity and hard work, but the cardinal sin is that freeze. Countless times a day, we experience that freeze; confronted by a situation in which our intuition tells us right off the bat to be merciful, kind, generous, etc., but still held back by that fear of vulnerability, whether emotional or physical.

Why is this 'discovery' important? Because it reframes the issue of 'good people' and 'bad people'. While everyone is ready to admit that there are evil people in the world, it may have occurred to very few that even the best of us are pathetic. All of a sudden, the question of why bad things happen to good people appears absurd. With the exception of young children, who among us has gone beyond the pathetic to become good in any definitive and overall sense?

It's food for thought for those of us who have wondered why karma may seem capricious. Maybe we've been presumptuous all along in judging existence as capricious because maybe instead of bald-faced misdeeds serving as the fuel that fires karma it's actually the more subtle phenomenon of misplaced priorities that keeps it raging.