Looking for the Karma

My son has the word Karma tattooed on his wrist (ouch).  He sees it as a reminder to think before he acts because, in the Western interpretation of the word, What goes around comes around.   Sometimes, I wish he looked at his wrist more often but that’s another story for a password-protected post.   But here it is, Tuesday again, and Top Sites Tuesday #125 requires my Two Thoughts.   Karma is the topic.  What brings me to the subject of Karma?  To tell you that, I need to take you back to two prior posts.

I try to run a nice blog around here.  I try to offer my Older Perspective on Life as a sixty-something Sage who’s been around the block a few times and has some useful experience to pass along.  I try to avoid being the Fool and while my readers seem to like my Inner Curmudgeon, I try to keep him in check, mostly because my wife has informed me that when I let him out too often, I’m hard to live with.   But sometimes, I just  have to let him speak for me.  In So Much for Nice, I posted the infuriating tale of a Mr. Albert Hole (get it?) whose car I hit with my bicycle, putting a small dent in his rear fender.  Several days later, Mr. Hole turned up with a bill for over $10,000.   Given the choice of killing him or turning it over to my insurance company, I did the latter.   Then, just few short weeks ago in Venting, I posted about discovering that Transamerica Insurance Company had increased my automatically deducted premiums by a factor of ten, leaving me thousands of dollars poorer by the time I noticed.   My very curmudgeonly post was brought on not by their legalized theft from my bank account but by their insistence on telling me how important my business was to them at the same time they were telling me to go stick it.

Well, let me give you an update.   Mr. and Mrs. Hole have shown up in our park again in a brand new Hyundai SUV and insist on parking near my favorite spot, overlooking the lake.  I don’t want to know if my insurance paid for their car, I just want to flip them off … maybe sneak up behind them and blow my horn to scare the crap out of them … better yet, just ram them broadside.  Muri won’t let me.   I’ve had two more letters from the Transamerica Insurance and Theft Company … one including a check for $224 out of over $3000 … both filled with more mindless customer service bullshit.   The Inner Curmudgeon is about to erupt.  And he’s wondering … Thought Number One … where the hell is that Karma when we need it?  When’s a park sycamore tree going to fall on that freaking new Hyundai and Venting going to go viral, bringing Transamerica to its financial knees?

Yeah, the Sage knows better.   The Sage knows that in various Indian religions, Karma can act over multiple lifetimes, so that our acts in this life may be repaid in later ones.   The Sage is a big fan of Wikipedia, which tells him that Karma is not punishment or retribution but simply an extended expression or consequence of natural acts. Karma means “deed” or “act” and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction, that governs all life. The effects experienced are also able to be mitigated by actions and are not necessarily fated. That is to say, a particular action now is not binding to some particular, pre-determined future experience or reaction; it is not a simple, one-to-one correspondence of reward or punishment.  The Sage offers Thought Number Two:  Maybe Mr. Hole has reformed and is working with the homeless in Orange County.  And maybe I’ll get to see Transamerica crumble in a future life.  Practice acceptance, Bud.

I gotta admit, sometimes my Sage is the better part of me, the angel sitting on my right shoulder.  My Inner Curmudgeon is often the devil on my left shoulder.  But this time, I’m going with the Curmudgeon.  Screw acceptance.  I want my Karma and I want it now.  Crush that Hyundai.  Bankrupt Transamerica.  If you’re with my Curmudgeon (and I know you are) push my button … gently … to make me Number One on Top Sites Tuesday #125.  And don’t be afraid to leave a comment … my Inner Curmudgeon almost never bites readers.

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