Sunday, June 10, 2012

Speaking of Fortune...

I'm going to preface this post by saying that, sadly, I don't believe in karma... I think that karma is wishful thinking on the part of individuals who believe in a just universe in which people who do wrong will somehow be punished, and my experience is that this doesn't happen. As Phil Chevron put it, "Wise men are beggared while fools are crowned, the evil ones float while the lowly ones drown." I'm going to have to chalk up the occurrence I'm recounting to pure good fortune.

After working the graveyard shift yesterday, I ran some errands, so I did not get home until about a quarter to ten. I parked the car, and noticed that a very large limb from the nearby oak tree occupied the part of the street in which my car had been parked the day before. As I turned the corner to my street, the unofficial deputy mayor of my neighborhood (a woman with two young sons who sits on her porch for hours every day holding court with various friends who constantly stop by with their own kids for a chat and a play date) told me, "Not five minutes after you left, that branch split off the tree and fell right where your car had been parked."

Funny, that... if I hadn't left early to see my friend's choral performance, my car would most likely have been totalled and I would have been S.O.L. O, Fortuna indeed!

11 comments:

M. Bouffant said...

Besides karma implying there's an entity judging you as good or evil, it just doesn't work consistently in the real, pre-death world.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

See Dick Cheney, still living, and with someone else's heart to boot.

But congrats to you and the B^4 mobile!
~

Gorilla Bananas said...

These things are never chance. You ought to hug that tree for what it did for you.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

so, if I understand this correctly, you owe your alto friend a car?

Karma seems unworkable.

Substance McGravitas said...

I stubbed my toe! Oh karma I hate you! Yum, chocolate! Oh karma I love you!

Helmut Monotreme said...

Back in college, I was working on the university grounds crew. I was speaking with a grad student on teh same crew who explained karma like this: Karma doesn't mean bad things happen to bad people, that would be poetic justice. Karma means, if you do bad things, you are a worse person for doing them, and now you have to live in a world where people do bad things and where you are a bad person.
That's not the only understanding of karma, but it makes sense to me, and is a way more useful understanding than poetic justice.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

That so many evil people get to say and do things that go unchallenged makes me fairly certain karma is bullshit.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Besides karma implying there's an entity judging you as good or evil, it just doesn't work consistently in the real, pre-death world.

Ain't it the truth!

See Dick Cheney, still living, and with someone else's heart to boot.

Yeah, he's Exhibit "A".

These things are never chance. You ought to hug that tree for what it did for you.

I think I shall. If it weren't on the street, I'd even consider making sweet, sweet love to it.

so, if I understand this correctly, you owe your alto friend a car?

If that were the case, I'd owe everyone in the chorus a car. Luckily, she's a city gal, so she doesn't drive.

I stubbed my toe! Oh karma I hate you! Yum, chocolate! Oh karma I love you!

Ah, but whose bad karma led them to being reincarnated as the cacao plant you ate?

That's not the only understanding of karma, but it makes sense to me, and is a way more useful understanding than poetic justice.

Well, karma needs to be interpreted in the context of dharma, which is largely the role that is determined for an individual, a concept largely based in the caste system (the dharma for a brahmin would be different than a kshatriya's dharma). If my dharma indicates that my proper role is to mug old ladies in the street, then mugging old ladies in the street would be good karma for me.

That so many evil people get to say and do things that go unchallenged makes me fairly certain karma is bullshit.

Smegma isn't so great either.

Helmut Monotreme said...

So what caste are you? We don't live in India, so my guess is, you get to make up your own caste. Does "facilities manager/event coordinator at a nonprofit" qualify as a caste?

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

So what caste are you? We don't live in India, so my guess is, you get to make up your own caste. Does "facilities manager/event coordinator at a nonprofit" qualify as a caste?

I have no idea- there are too many contradictions in my situation and personality. I'd like to think that I am outside the caste system, outside pointing and laughing at the people who buy into it.

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