why, china and the bachelor, of course

I am lobbying Dre to interview for the new Bachelor. Why? Because she's a sucker. Which reminds me, I'm sleepy.

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I've been thinking about this Gandhi quote that I don't know verbatim, and no, I'm not going to rename this blogsite The Gandhi Chronicles. Anyway it goes something like this: You can't do right in one part of your life while doing wrong in another part of your life. Life is an indivisible whole. It might seem a rigid approach but I like it particularly since I'm good at forgetting about karma. Over dinner last night we were talking about its laws and how oftentimes, because we don't see the immediate effects of karma, we think it doesn't exist. Or, because the "effect" part of karma (it is simply the law of cause and effect) isn't always obvious, we feel separated from our actions. Ann Marie brought up a helpful illustration: If you smash a bug w/ your right hand and then your right arm immediately breaks, you may not draw a conclusion to your action. However, if you then smashed another bug with your left hand and your left arm immediately breaks, well now you'd equate the two occurrences. But life lessons are seldom this obvious. If you cheat on your taxes or gossip and you never get caught, you may not be inspired to act with integrity; yet karma (Newton was hack) dictates that every action has an equal and opposite reaction so consequence, good or bad, is unavoidable. Look, I'm not trying to be a downer here.

Which brings me to a second point: deterrents are lame. They suggest that our actions should be driven by a fear of consequence when actually the will to act/speak/eat/watch/be/etc with integrity should be its own reward. And in fact, it's meaningless otherwise. I've long thought that the fear of punishment is not an effective means of control. However, today I had lunch today with a client and we were talking about the Chinese government's role in their country's piracy epidemic. In short, movies on the government's Do Not Pirate Or Else list (I'm pretty sure that's the official name) are not pirated because the people know that the Chinese gov't doesn't f*&!ck around. They don't have Club Fed prisons there and breaking the law has its obvious results. Anyway, yes, I'm disappointed that my theory is being disproved somewhere across the globe, but I am no less discouraged. It can't last. And despite China's supposed efficacy, doing what's right is much easier when it's coming from a place of willingness and openess instead of guilt. Everything feels easier when I make choices because I want to feel good as opposed to not wanting to feel bad. And then what's cool is that doing what's in my best interest is contagious so that slowly, the areas of my life fall into alignment and the healthy claims more of a presence which replaces the unhealthy bit by bit. it's an act of practice. I'm still experimenting with that last theory but that's the direction I hope it's heading.

Oh garbled sleepiness, what did you do with my head?