How Karma Is Like Pool
It’s a funny thing, karma.
Most people in the West don’t really understand the word, even people who read a lot of “new age” and spiritual stuff. They get the idea that “karma” means fate, predestination, some kind of mysterious outside force of destiny that determined who is happy or unhappy, who is lucky or unlucky, who lives and who dies.
If you really want to understand karma, play pool.
One player hits the cue ball — click! — and the tightly gathered triangle breaks; the three ball of all the fifteen balls, finds its way to the corner pocket and drops. No one planned it, but as a consequence of the way the ball was struck, the way the other balls were racked, irregularities in the green felt, even tiny chips and scratches left by previous games, all combine to determine that the three ball drops. This time. That’s karma, the whole thing: cause and effect, and causes and effects left over from previous history.
Watching the political news, this analogy, this image, keeps coming to mind. The first election I really took part in was 1976: Reagan versus Ford, Kennedy versus Carter in the primaries; then Ford versus Carter in the election itself. Some Reagan supporters sat out the election; Ford lost in two states by a few thousand votes, but the Electoral College turned, and Carter was President. (Click!)
Four years later, after Iran, and Panama, and stagflation, and hostages, Reagan wins the next election. Then Lebanon, and Kuwait, and Iraq, “read my lips” and all, many conservatives go to Perot; Clinton is President. Eight years after that, a few hundred votes turn one way in Florida, and George W Bush revenges his father, but at last he’s too “liberal”, not a true enough “conservative”, and conservatives sit out the 2006 election. (Click!) Congress changes hands.
Now we’re in another election season. Moveon.org endorses Obama; the Democratic Party “super-delegates” lean to Hillary Clinton; conservatives like Ann Coulter say they’d rather see a real Democrat win than a fake Republican like McCain; and non-traditional candidates like Bloomberg and Nader hover, waiting, in the wings.
Every one is another cue shot, another chip, another ball on the table, and eventually the election will come, and one ball or another will drop into the cup. People will vote for one candidate or another, or sit out the election completely, and eventually one candidate will be elected President.
Some time after November 4th (please, God, very soon after!) we’ll know who that is.
If your favorite candidate isn’t elected, if you are unhappy with the performance of the next President, you can at least feel comforted by one thing.
It was karma.
Click!
Charlie Martin is a Colorado computer scientist and nearly-successful screenwriter who contributes to the Flares Into Darkness political blog as ‘Seneca the Younger,’ and blogs under his own name at the aggressively non-political Explorations blog.
Dear Mr. Martin: Edward Kennedy ran against Carter in the
1980
primaries, not 1976, which had Jimmy running against Scoop Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, Geroge Wallace, Edmund Muskie, and that Mormon, what was his name, oh yes, Mo Udall. It also featured Gerald Ford saying this in the second Presidential debate:
“Chopping the air with his right hand, Gerald Ford boldly declared: “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford Administration.” (Quote from TIME magazine’s 18 October 76 issue.)
Other than that, your analysis disturbs the surface lightly. Keep working on those screenplays.
Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster
Hey Charlie, great post.
Greg, thanks, it did sort of all blur together. I’m sorry your surface was disturbed.
Terrye, thanks!
Good job. A good analogy is always appreciated. A double analogy twice as much.
One can mentally expand on the pool analogy and the balls hanging close to the cup, but instead of falling in, being used in an unexpected combination and sending other balls in, maybe two or three at once.
I’m not so sure about the Karma analogy, but why complain if it comes free in the package? Two for the price of one. Yay!
You’re a lot more right than a lot of others. Karma is consequence; however it is not cause-effect. The sages and priests of karma didn’t believe in cause-effect relationships. Things happened as an expression of the way the world was, the way all the forces were lined up, and so on. Westerners think infections cause a fever. The traditional Orient saw the fever as indicative of the state of the body, as cracks in heated tortoise shell or thrown yarrow stalks indicated the state of the universe. The way things were was not reducible to chains of cause-effect, but rather to the nature of the system. Nor were these things determinate in the mechanical nature of cause-effect. In pure brute causation, when the fuse is lit, the dynamite will explode. I can’t recall who said karma is fan-shaped, meaning you seem to have wide latitudes of choice at an earlier point, you have fewer later, none at the narrow end. Where you are on the fan-shape of your particular karma–the consequence of the way things were at your entry and the choices you made along the way–limits what you can reasonably do. In short, the state of the universe does not cause things, but enables somethings as it necessarily impedes others. You are free to ignore what the bowels of the chicken say about the state of the universe. But the choice puts you on the wrong side of the universe and has consequences, as all your choices will, for your karma. Having free will and making choices wasn’t necessarily a good thing in the traditinal orient. Better to attend to your dharma and have “good” karma.
Thanks for the kind words, guys. DuMaurier-Smith, you make an interesting argument. It’s clear (at least to me, although I may be a little feverish myself) that cause and effect always depends on the whole state of the system, not just the obvious “causes”.
It’s my karma to think Charlie is one of the most creative and intelligent folks around…and a nice guy, too.Bravo, Charlie!