London Calling

I think deep down inside we believe we have some kind of contract with Life, with God, with our imaginary parents, etc…, such that certain types of behavior or faith or whatever will get rewarded with success and other activities will be punished. We then tend to guide our behavior around these beliefs and then get mad if and when Life doesn’t pay off.

Either the real or merely literary Jesus of the Bible seemed to understand this, as plenty of times he was asked what sin caused someone’s condition, or why a tower fell over on them, or why they experienced some bad thing. And again and again he refutes this in ways particular to the circumstance.

You could argue that this proves there’s no such thing as God, because both the “good” and the “bad” have basically equal chances of reward in this life.

But on the contrary I would argue that, if virtue were always eventually rewarded, it wouldn’t be virtue. If evil were always punished, no one would do it. In other words, we’d all just be animals in some giant Skinner box.

No, the most virtuous actions humans perform are those performed with no belief in reward.

But all of this is philosophy.

Back in 2001, shortly after September 11th, I happened to be examining such issues inside myself and realized that a lot of my activities were performed under the guise of some deeply-held belief or template. I think that, internally, there was some sort of diety I was trying to appease and cajole into blessing me through our telecom startup. What I realized on that day was there was also a host of desires and other muck that I was trying to suppress or perhaps even convince myself weren’t there.

What I decided then and there was to allow myself to feel those desires and irrational things. This doesn’t mean acting them out or getting them fulfilled (most of the time!), but it did mean allowing myself to be completely honest with myself about who and what I am, and then working from there. I also felt/thought that if there was anything to the concept of Grace in Christianity, it would have to extend as far as the reality of ‘me’ as I actually am, not as I believe I’m supposed to be. In other words, I wou;dn’t necessarily be blessed or rewarded, but on the other hand if I faithfully and openly engaged this process then I would be supported by the universe in this, no matter the starting point.

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