Karma
I don’t believe “things happen for a reason.”
The Universe, in my view, has no normative intention; there’s no God out there who “has a plan” for people; it’s all just amoral functioning without some intrinsic way things ought to be.
This doesn’t mean you can’t talk about beings or species or even systems having a kind of telos or end; certainly, the tree “wants” to grow; the sexes are “meant” to reproduce; it even makes sense to talk as if there are better and worse ways for organisms to thrive; but the idea that what I do or don’t do makes any difference at all to the internal workings of the Cosmos just seems unsupportable to me.
Shit happens, and then human beings try to make sense of it, evaluating actions and behaviors and even sharing what we can understand as a kind of “quasi-realistic” “intersubjectively objective” perspective on what’s happened, but it’s not as if the underlying fabric of things makes any sort of judgment on what’s gone down; what goes around may come around, but only because of coincidence, self-fulfilling prophecy, or cognitive biases.
Consequently, it’s surprising to me when it seems like I’m getting “paid back” by present events for something I shouldn’t have done in the past.
Case in point: about a year ago, I ordered a wool Polo shirt from Ibexwear. About two weeks later, I received my purchase, and then about a week later, I got another one, for which I wasn’t charged. I knew I ought to send it back, but I figured “finders keepers.”
Not a week or so later, I spilled salad dressing on one of the shirts, pretty much ruining it, but I thought, “No problem; I’ve got the other one.”
Today, I was trying to cut a loose thread off the good one, though, and accidently cut an ugly hole right in the chest, rendering it unwearable, at least in public.
Serves me right, right?
The Universe, in my view, has no normative intention; there’s no God out there who “has a plan” for people; it’s all just amoral functioning without some intrinsic way things ought to be.
This doesn’t mean you can’t talk about beings or species or even systems having a kind of telos or end; certainly, the tree “wants” to grow; the sexes are “meant” to reproduce; it even makes sense to talk as if there are better and worse ways for organisms to thrive; but the idea that what I do or don’t do makes any difference at all to the internal workings of the Cosmos just seems unsupportable to me.
Shit happens, and then human beings try to make sense of it, evaluating actions and behaviors and even sharing what we can understand as a kind of “quasi-realistic” “intersubjectively objective” perspective on what’s happened, but it’s not as if the underlying fabric of things makes any sort of judgment on what’s gone down; what goes around may come around, but only because of coincidence, self-fulfilling prophecy, or cognitive biases.
Consequently, it’s surprising to me when it seems like I’m getting “paid back” by present events for something I shouldn’t have done in the past.
Case in point: about a year ago, I ordered a wool Polo shirt from Ibexwear. About two weeks later, I received my purchase, and then about a week later, I got another one, for which I wasn’t charged. I knew I ought to send it back, but I figured “finders keepers.”
Not a week or so later, I spilled salad dressing on one of the shirts, pretty much ruining it, but I thought, “No problem; I’ve got the other one.”
Today, I was trying to cut a loose thread off the good one, though, and accidently cut an ugly hole right in the chest, rendering it unwearable, at least in public.
Serves me right, right?
posted by Professor Dave at 5:27 PM
1 Comments:
I totally agree with the "shit happens" part, and the ways that humans try to make sense of it all makes for interesting conversation. word
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