"Round"

I was doing my usual stuff on the computer, but left the room to take a phone call. When I came back, I was met with a black screen. This can’t be a good thing. I’m feeling like I must’ve done something terribly wrong to be punished like this, and that’s nothing compared to what John’s going to feel when he checks his messages and hears my distress call after he’s spent so much time and effort already on my last computer disaster. Ohhhhh!!!!

So… round? Maybe the circular nature of computer problems? Maybe something to take my mind off such things? What goes around, comes around? Blah, blah, blah. It’s hard to be philosophical when faced with a black computer screen, or maybe it’s necessary to be philosophical at times like this. Isn’t some of this how the idea of karma started?

I don’t remember when I first heard about karma, but it made sense to me – at least in a general way. Or maybe I just wanted karma to exist? Good is rewarded, bad is punished, and the world makes more sense than when obviously bad people get ahead in the world. Do we really want to live in a world where the robber barons buy the best seats in heaven? It’s far better to think of them working in the coal mines in their next lives to pay for their sins. Maybe my desire for karma to exist is a simple plea to the universe to make sense.

Once, I held a door open for a woman going into a store. I didn’t have to do it since she was several yards behind me, but it was raining and she looked rather miserable. Her surprise and gratitude hit me in the heart. I felt like I got a karma point that day. Well, being a collector of things, I figured one karma point was good, lots were better, so I started holding more doors open. No more karma points were awarded. Apparently you don’t get karma points by doing things for karma points. People actually started being kind of nasty to me as they walked through my open doors. I guess they caught onto the fact that I was trying to make myself feel better and they weren’t going to play my game. Serves me right.

After some consideration, I decided the only real way to collect more karma points was to consistently do nice things for others and hope some good would stick along the way. It makes for a much simpler philosophy, and is much easier to maintain. I hold open doors when the person behind me is the right distance away for that to be appropriate or if they’ve got their arms full. Anything more seems to fall into some level of codependency. It’s a complicated world, and the longer I live in it, the more rules I think I understand. At least they seem clearer sometimes. The rest of the time I feel like I’m just grasping at rationality because the world is actually as insane as it seems. Even so, my ideas of karma make my path clearer, and help me walk around with my head up. More doors are opened, more people spread sunshine, and the world makes more sense.

I doodled my karma coin today with the thought that John deserves karma points for his computer help. I’m not sure how that fits into his Catholicism, but I figure he’ll understand my intent. I had already tried restarting my computer earlier today, but since that didn’t work I started unplugging things so I could force Korki’s laptop back into service. I was thinking about my gratitude to both Korki and John when the thought occurred to me to try plugging the power back into my computer. Presto!!! My computer booted up like it was just waiting for me to do exactly that. Can you hear the angels singing?

I’m not sure who’s karma points got cashed in for this latest miracle, but I’m not rocking the boat. I’m fighting the urge to go find doors to open for old people.