Gonna knock you off your feet,
Better recognize your brothers,
Ev'ryone you meet,
Why in the world are we here,
Surely not to live in pain and fear,
Why on earth are you there,
When you're ev'rywhere,
Come and get your share.
A Percept Is A Product
June 29, `73
Living on the beach had been more than just basking my body in the
sun. The bad vibes and constant anticipation of being beaten to death
were taking a toll on me. My natural tendency towards being
good-natured had, I'm afraid, been compromised. I couldn't even ride
my bicycle down the street (I had bought an old clunker to get me to
and from work) and keep a smile on my face. The sterile looks and
insinuating sneers from the passing motorists had wiped that customary
smile off my face. The other night, an oncoming car flicked his bright
lights off when he saw me coming. Anyplace else that act of kindness
would have gone unnoticed, but here in paradise, consideration for
others was so uncommon that I was forced to reflect on how my
environment was influencing my attitudes and behavior.
When people asked me, "Have you had any hassles living on the beach?"
I would always reply, "Not yet." They would then respond, "You must
have good karma." Karma was the easy answer. It also satisfied
rational inquiry. "Good" got rewarded and "evil" punished. I could
accept karma at face value, but that meant, positively, that I was
special, and, negatively, that Eddy (the victim) wasn't; perhaps he
was even evil. That idea was okay except for the fact that it did not
satisfy the empirical evidence. Try as I may, I could not remember my
"boy scout" past. Also, there was nothing in my experience with Eddy
that remotely suggested that he deserved punishment. There just wasn't
enough available evidence to make me believe in karma. Therefore, it
was easy for me to reject karma as an explanation for "what happened
to people."
If I rejected karma, I also had to reject fate. I suppose that I
could reinterpret fate as being the history of my actions, but to do
so meant that I had no control over my possibilities and that was a
denial of my rational intent. To believe, "what will be, will be," did
not jive with my past experience. If I had no control over my own
actions then “the intent” of altruism, regret, and compassion
became indistinguishable from acts of meanness,
violence, and torture. Fate implied an "other," and that "other"
denied personal responsibility. Excluding responsibility from my
actions was ludicrous. Therefore, I rejected fate as an explanation for
"what happened to people."
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