Choreographing Fear
Hey, Jazz Pickles! Hope you had a great weekend, holiday or not. Whereas I used to mostly comment on my cartoons on this blog, the pandemic and other recent events have made me more philosophical and I’ve enjoyed sharing those thoughts with you. Many readers have expressed an appreciation for these kinds of essays so I will continue as the muse dictates. If you don’t care for them, just skip ahead to the cartoons. I won’t tell anyone.
In popular culture and casual conversation, people tend to talk about “karma” as though it were a kind of universal point system wherein if you do something bad or good, something bad or good will happen to you in return. That’s a gross simplification, of course, but I have to admit that I long believed that karma was basically that and I assume many others do, too. And, as a person who doesn’t easily believe in higher systems that interfere in the lives of humans, judge us, and keep score, I’ve long dismissed it as nonsense.
But recently I came across a more complete definition of karma that is making a lot more sense to me and it’s this: What you do to others (or the earth) you also do to yourself because we are all connected. Bingo! That’s undeniably true in my mind, and here’s why.
We, like every other molecule of matter on this planet, are part of an enormous living thing we call Earth, just as a single skin cell is a tiny part of what you call you. Additionally, all multi-cell organisms are made up of numerous other organisms; only 43% of the human body is actually human, for instance. The rest are microscopic colonists. And we can’t live without them.
The same is true for everything around us. It, them, us, those, we are all part of a system that is interconnected in billions of ways that we know of and billions more yet to be discovered. And here’s where karma comes in.
If you ace someone out of a parking place because you have a better angle even though they were waiting for it longer, it gains you the convenience of that parking space in the short term (if you can bear the scorn of the other driver) but in the long run, it makes your community less friendly. As we’ve seen acutely in recent years, people behaving badly is contagious. So the larger question isn’t how much do you want that parking place, but would you rather live in a hostile community or a friendly one? When you are hostile to others, you are also doing it to yourself.
People who don’t want to wear a mask in public during a pandemic may feel they are exercising their liberty. They may go to a large rally against the advice of medical professionals (who must then literally risk their lives and sanity to care for them a few weeks later) and most will likely not get the virus. They may justify their risk by the lack of negative results.
But some will get sick, and they’ll pass it on to others, and they’ll pass it on, and there will be deaths. This is happening now in Tulsa and other places around the U.S. and will continue for no-one-knows how long. People who attended those rallies and thought nothing of it are now links in a chain that has killed others and will continue to. And some of those “others” will be people the mask-less attendees know or are related to.
Things come back around to bite you because everything is connected.
People argue the mask topic endlessly as though it is a matter of opinion, but the simple truth is that a person's right to do anything abruptly ends when it has the potential to create a victim. You have the right to throw a rock; you do not have the right to throw a rock at someone else’s head. You have the right to engage in sexual intercourse; you do not have the right to do that without the other person’s consent. You have the right not to wear a mask; you do not have the right to do that in places where you may kill others by doing so. Whether we like it or not, we are all connected. That’s not something that “freedom” can free you from.
Contemplating how we are all connected to each other and every other thing in this biosphere in which we live can really change your outlook. It can help to make sense of things, provide a kind of guidepost for how we should proceed and can soften the way we treat each other. These things contribute to the kind of inner satisfaction and happiness that modern, industrial life tends to make so elusive. That is to say that they feel good in a more substantial way than material diversions can provide. And when people are happier, they’re less likely to be assholes.
Which brings me to my final point: As hard as it is to accomplish, we need to stop seeing “those other people” as assholes. Yes, they are assholes, no one can deny that. A lot of us are in various ways. But we are assholes because this society we’ve built creates a lot of unnecessary stress and false rewards. Of course we’re assholes—we feel unfulfilled, forgotten, empty, uncounted, powerless, dismissed. And as long as large groups of people feel that way, some are going to lash out in myriad ways, like a teenager whose parents are ignoring them. They may burn flags and throw rocks at the cops, or flaunt firearms in public in an attempt to gain some kind of power and control over their tiny corner of a hostile world. And now and then, one of them is going to snap and shoot up that world that isn’t giving them anything worth keeping. Why does this surprise us?
But while we have the power to change the things we invented, like our social systems, the way this planet works as an organism is nonnegotiable. And one of those functions is that we are an inseparable part of it and everything we do has endless ripples. No matter the level of disagreement, treating certain groups as enemies only makes the whole system more toxic, including where you live.
Karma, the Golden Rule, and countless other tidbits (and boulders!) of wisdom throughout the ages all describe the same thing—what you do, you do to yourself. And it’s not just philosophy, it’s biology.
ON THAT POMPOUS NOTE, let’s take a sharp right onto Wayno Lane and see what kinds of comics he left in the street for us to find!…
This is completely true. I warm up that way before I used chopsticks, too.
Did the college admissions scandal surprise anyone? Two of America’s last three presidents got into (and out of) high-end universities because they had rich, powerful parents.
I like the Cob Chompers logo and the Slop 45, which has a double meaning, of course. Years ago when I lived in NY some buddies and I were going to form a vegan motorcycle gang and call it Thundering Tofu. All I really wanted, though, was a jacket with that emblem on the back.
I can’t help but wonder if he’s depicting his family or keeping score of how many people he’s killed with that newfangled invention.
Placing the thumb in the mouth and blowing real hard can inflate cartoon characters as well, of course.
Over on Wayno’s cartoon blog post this week, he’s got some terrific comments about music and art that you’ll want to absorb. He also features some cool art and music by R. Crumb. Go there now, come right back!
In this branch of Feng Shui, timing is as important as placement.
Well, precious Jazz Pickles, our time for today is over. If you’re enjoying this blog, please sign up for our email alerts at the bottom of this page. And why not ask your friends if they’d like to do the same? If I say something that offends them, you probably didn’t want to be friends with them anyway.
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Until next time, be happy, be smart, by kind, and laugh every day, even if only maniacally.
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