I still remember the first and last time I hit my sibling with a stick. I did so brazenly, and my father saw it and was furious. He grabbed the stick, broke it into three or four pieces, threw it into the woods, and then verbally scolded me until I burst into tears. I was not to ever use violence against another. The message was very clear... or so I thought.
As I have matured though, I have come to see my father's message as being much more nuanced. I've come to know many men who repeatedly hit their siblings with sticks, and received no punishment whatsoever by their parents. They were just "boys being boys," which exempted them from any and all disciplinary measures. And contrary to what one might think, these men did not grow up to be criminals who wound up in jail, but rather highly esteemed men by many societal standards.
All of this has taught me that there are indeed a set of rules that I must live by, but that they are my rules alone, and not everyone in this world is bound by them. Depending on how tall or short you are, what gender you are, and what your skin color is, humanity has come to delineate its own unique set of rules for you to live by. While some can literally get away with every crime imaginable, from assault and murder to fraud, embezzlement, extortion, and even crimes against humanity, others cannot so much as jaywalk without receiving harsh and draconian punishment, up to and including even summary execution. And all based on what should be trivial and inconsequential physical attributes.
And yet, while for a time I was envious of the mischievousness that so many can get away with, the longer I live, the more I have come to see it as a hidden curse. Why? Because life does have a way of repaying us in kind for our every action. And as with most things having to do with life, there is a powerful catch: karmic justice is long overdue by the time it comes, to the point where we human beings with our short attention spans cannot possibly learn from whatever mistakes brought about our misery. In some cases, a person can go upwards of half a lifetime abusing their fellow men and women before their misdeeds finally catch up with them, by which point their malfeasance has been completely and irreversibly ingrained in their psyche. Swift human justice is one of the few things that could have conditioned them otherwise, but in its absence a person is completely lost, repeating the same tired old mistakes over and over again, thinking they are achieving success when really they are only postponing their inevitable downfall.
I'm still not sure whether it is even possible to learn from one's mistakes. But if so, then the sooner you learn, the better. Otherwise, there's a good chance you never will learn, and be stuck eternally repeating them ad infinitum, as you spiral ever deeper into trouble and discord.
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