I’ve never really bought the whole fate; destiny etc thing. Life if full of a whole bunch of coincidences and the human mind just likes patterns that much. I don’t comprehend the whole destiny thing. I do something, which then causes something to happen. Or someone does something, and I react, and that reaction affects something else and then it’s a big ole chain from that.
It always winds me up when I hear “I dreamt such and such… it was fate, because it told me a solution to this problem or something else that was probably already in my un/sub-consious” To me, that just really underestimates the human mind. It also puts control completely out of your own grasp. Say you’re “told something in a dream” and it turns out to be wrong. What then, the fates are out to get you? Or you made an error of judgement based on your past experiences.
And Karma. Sometimes good things just land in your lap. But said good things happen to good and bad people. Karma implies that if lots of bad things have happened to you, you’ve done something terribly terribly wrong, when it might just be where you were born or the environment you live in. Karma implies that if something bad happens to you, someway somehow, it’s your own fault. Karma implies that if someone wrongs you, it’s ok because something will then happen to them; but that conveniently ignores the fact that something bad just happened to you.
Or you were bad in a past life. Gee that’s fair. If someone’s teaching you a lesson, and you can’t remember what you actually did wrong, what are you going to learn? Diddly squat, that’s what.
People just… let things happen… because they believe it’s destiny that it happens (Well there’s nothing you can do about it so just take it), or that they deserve it somehow because they’ve done something bad even though they don’t know what (It’s your own fault this is happening to you). And it infuriates me because there are just bad people in the world that’ll crush you for their own gain and pleasure and not give a shit, and it’s not your fault they’re doing it, nor is it meant to be, because that would justify it.
And people that are content with “Well Karma will get them in the end.” How? Because the same will happen to them? Because they’ll be arrested? …Well doesn’t someone make that happen?
That’s like saying “Let’s not stop terrorists, because they’ll go to hell in the end” ; That doesn’t change the fact they’ve killed so many people. Saying it’s destiny that they were there at that time gives justification to them saying that it wasn’t their own, consious desision (For the sake of the analogy, we’ll ignore the indocrination etc that goes on here) to do so, they were somehow forced to do it by destiny, or fate. And Karma. So all those innocents deserved to die, and all their families and friends deserved to lose someone special to them?
Someone I know slapped someone for trying to assault them. Well hell, wouldn’t you? She was slapped two years later by a drunk woman. It was “Karma” for doing violence earlier (the slap). And I’m just thinking “Well didn’t that person deserve the slap? If you’re not going to make that ‘karma’, then who is?”
I can see where ‘karma’ can come in as far as guilt and retaliation - you’ve done something bad, and either it haunts you, or someone you’ve wronged retaliates because you’ve wronged them. When people that are completely unconnected happen to do something, I don’t see how that ‘balances’ out anything.
Maybe two wrongs don’t make a right. Maybe one shouldn’t retaliate like that. But then Karma just falls apart; because karma would get you back, by returning a wrong you did right back at you, right?
Basically, the only ‘karma’ I can understand, is the karma you make for yourself. Sitting back and expecting good things to happen to you… well occasionally good things fall into your lap while you’re looking for them. I call that coincidence, personally. If you make something good happen yourself, it might not work, but sitting there and complaining that you don’t have this or you can’t do that and then not doing anything about it and saying “It’s karma/destiny, that’s why I’m in this situation” just doesn’t make any sense to me.
And then when you let people off because “One day they’ll get their just desserts” …No, they’ll get their just desserts for the crime they did to you when you do something about it, like report it. And maybe it won’t work and it will fall through, or maybe circumstances dictate it might be too risky if it does fall through, fair enough. But leaving someone to get away with something because ‘bad karma’ will get them doesn’t sit well with me. If you’re not going to prevent someone from doing something, who will? What if everyone starts going around going “Doesn’t matter he mugged that old lady, he’ll get karma one day” and said person just continues mugging old ladies? Is that right, considering the first witness could have at least tried to put a stop to it - even through the sluggish law, at least try?
Karma and destiny and all that jazz… just seem to me like ways people fool themselves into thinking they don’t have a choice. Sure, sometimes they dont… but then, it also takes responsibility off yourself if you’ve wronged, or someone else if they’ve wronged you, or even worse in the case of karma, puts the responsibility on you when you’re the one that’s been wronged, not wronged yourself.
Treat others as you would like to be treated always worked for me, but at the same time remembering that the same should go for everyone else; so treat others as you would expect to be treated by someone, if you had done the same thing?
But either way, believing karma or not, it’s not going to change anything that’s already happened. Just what will happen, which according to karma and destiny, you can’t control. Which I just don’t buy.
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