Fairness

Fairness is a relative thing. We can talk about people having wealth and power but that doesn’t make people happier; what does seem to produce it involves respect and love and a sense of meaning. We see young people die from cancer or brain tumors and we ask why they must die instead of someone who we deem deserves it less. But then from our vantage point, we are not able to play judge and executioner.

I see life differently as I age and look at the inherent injustice from a measuring stick that isn’t cosmic for I do not have the perspective to see why things happen and so count on some measure of societal poetic justice to balance the scales. Most religions laud the idea of suffering to attain an eternal goal but sometimes its hard to see it when you look at the apparent randomness around us. The idea of being born against your will and living on a rock that spins in space until our time is up seems oddly irrational but then we have learned to work within the constraints of this theatre we have been born into. It has been our normal for better or worse.

I think about these concepts more and more and reflect on whether there is a grand scheme. I do so always with the awareness that I am just one of many cogs busily going about their daily lives with its many meaningless distractions until my own allotted time is up.