Sins

A mistake is not a sin unless you knew it was wrong before you did it, at least that’s how I think about it.  We make a lot of mistakes, and we commit a lot of sins.

Sins of the father are borne by the sons, and daughters, of a world trying desperately to keep its balance in spite of us.  Spite is a powerful motivation, but not always a sound one.  There is nothing we do that does not bear a cost, or a consequence, whether we see it or not.  We lie, we cheat, we steal because it is our nature, and it is difficult to not indulge it.  Perhaps it is true that suffering is a requisite in our collective journey, and maybe that’s true but who exactly suffers?  Perhaps it is the least of us who bear the largest share of the angst and pain of powerlessness, but I have to wonder.

When you have no money, you struggle to get it, begging or borrowing or stealing for your own survival.  When you have a lot of money, you struggle to keep it, begging or borrowing or stealing to increase and maintain your share.  Some would say that is merely greed, often looking very much like unconscionable usury, taking more than one’s fair share or taking advantage of those with less.  This is nothing new, nor is our fascination with the concept of victors deserving spoils, or winner taking all.  Our need for battle is strong, and we are extraordinarily competitive gladiators.  We choose to battle on large and small scales, the least consequential of which is the sports arena.

Unfortunately, victory requires individual achievement, and there are perhaps too many of us now to avoid the attractive simplicity of supremacy, and its sibling greed.  When is enough enough?  For some of us, there is no end to the quest for winning and having more – more victories, more accolades.  It often seems that accolades are the prize most valued, but that’s another story.  For others, it seems that praise of the victor is what is most valued;  we need a hero, a savior, and I suppose deliverance from a set of unpleasant, or at least undesirable, circumstances that we believe we can’t improve without help.  There are tolls on either end of this scale between victory and defeat, between supremacy and subordination, but we frequently do not explore the cost of travel.

What furrows my brow most in all of this, is considering there has been no consideration of questions such as where does justice live?  Does it take a backseat to the common good, or the good of those at the top of the cultural hierarchy? Where do equity and fair play take center stage?  It often seems there is no place for the subjectivity of how we place valur on any of these; one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor, as the old adage goes.  For the greater numeric majority of human beings on this planet, however, justice is a pipe dream and equity is summarily misunderstood.  How can equity be realized when 98% of the human beings on the planet have less choice, less material gain, less comfort than the remaining 2%?  How does the caste of class and ethnicity even begin to demonstrate justice?

These are the questions that wrinkle my brow and disturb my sleep.  There are other questions, but I can answer many of them when considering our undying need for victory by whatever means necessary.  Our genome seems to be hard wired for that binary, which at its least obtrusive generates money but at its worst gives rise to war.  Neither is morally superior or even practically better than the other.  In no case do we engage in serious contemplation of the moral cost in continuing our unbridled quest for more of everything, for superiority, for supremacy, for hero status.  I suppose the best we can do is consider whether more egalitarian choices might be possible, whether choices can be made that offer the least amount of suffering, the least amount of inequity, the least amount of injustice.  Can we sacrifice  a bit of what is comfortable for us in pursuit of a level playing field in the human experience?  I’m not sure, but our track record so far says no, and that is very sad.