Can you imagine if Karma was real? You do good, and you get rewarded. Someone does you bad, and they get punished. Oh, life would be a dream…
I’m sad to admit that, but Karma is not a practical concept today. It implies that good deeds result in good karma, and good consequences for the individual, and bad deeds result in bad consequences.
It’s way too abstract.
Us skeptics would wonder what ensures that bad actions receive bad consequences. Isn’t it naive to believe in Karma? Just look at the people in power across the world. Would you say they have good karma? Would you say they’re wholesome? I bet not.
There are a lot of assholes and psychopaths out there who seem to suffer no consequences. And at the same time there are a lot of well-meaning, and well-doing people who don’t get rewarded by society.
If karma were a person, they’d say our systems are broken. Society optimizes for money and overall GDP. While this is generally correlated with Karma, there are gaps. People bully others and suffer no consequence. People rob, and kill, and lie and suffer no consequences. People destroy the good that others have worked so hard to create. Justice and Karma aren’t universal.
And yet, I feel optimistic. I think there are good reasons to think that Karma is coming.
How? Through the internet. Today we live in a well connected world. Gossip travels fast. And Gossip brings karma with it. And evil is finding it harder and harder to hide. Information wants to be free, and gossip about evil deeds most of all. The internet facilitates that, and punishes bad actors. Even for deeds done way in the past. The Harvey Weinsteins and the Kevin Spaceys of the world might have done horrible things decades ago, and yet, today karma has caught up to them.
And Karma is catching up to all of us. It might be slow, but is getting closer. And now we have time for choice. In everything we do. In the moments we feel weak and tired and want to take the shortcut. Do we take these shortcuts, even if they hurt others? And can we get away with it? None of us is perfect. We all have wholesome moments, and yet, we all have evil moments.
And now… realizing and remembering that Karma is catching up to us, we have one more thing to lean on during those trying moments.