There is an older woman who lives down the block from us, and many mornings on my way to work I will see her walking to church. Sometimes she walks past me and says hello, but most of the time she will randomly veer off the sidewalk, walk around cars, and essentially pick a strange and circuitous route like a child might do. My wife and I sometimes joke that she is compelled to do these weird things to ward off the return of Cthulhu, but the truth is that she's probably just a little nutty, in addition to very superstitious.
Despite liking to think of myself as completely materialist and rational, I find that I possess a very strong internal sense of karma when it comes to finding and losing things.
It's not just a sense of trying to be an honest person, though there's an element of that as well. It really seems more about justice, about golden-ruleness, about wanting to do everything I can to increase the likelihood that if I lose something important - say, my SmartTrip card (I found one in my building last week, and if you're not familiar with D.C. you may not know that those things can have hundreds of dollars on them, plus be monthly rechargeable) or my glasses (my wife found a pair last week) or my driver's license (I've both lost mine and found others' on more than one occasion) - that people will take the same pains to get it back to me, or at least not steal it for themselves.
If I found $50,000 in cash in a paper bag, would I turn it in? I really don't know but I'd be strongly tempted to keep it, and if I did, karma would not be among my concerns. If I found a wad of bills totaling $1,000 on the street, I'd probably keep it and chalk it up to plain old (absolutely fucking awesome) luck. But if I found a wallet with some kind of ID that had $1,000 in it, I would absolutely return it - probably by trying to get in touch directly with the person who lost it - and I wouldn't be one of those people to first take the money out and then say I'd found it empty. Nor would I expect a reward.
What it really comes down to - for me, at least - is a social compact, but one that - I notice - has me as a big part of it. I don't actually believe that were I to keep the SmartTrip card, throw out the glasses, or even strip the money out of that wallet - that it would bring bad things on me or even increase the likelihood of my losing something in the future.
That would imply some supernatural external power directing things and keeping score. And yet I can't deny that "doing the right thing" in those instances makes me feel better, even if I never know whether the person who lost the card or the glasses comes to claim them. Intuitively, even if not rationally, I embrace the concept of karma.
8 comments:
The social compact is a huge deal for me. Not doing my part makes the system shakier than it already is.
In the grand scheme of things, using those $1,000 with a name attached to them would be a fleeting moment filled with guilt; knowing that the right thing has been done and you've eased another person's mind is infinitely more rewarding in my view.
With the $1,000 (in a wallet), there is definitely an element of superstition that would kick in in my mind. And, if something bad subsequently happened, I'd probably link it somehow to the $1,000.
It's just such an odd facet of my personality, considering how materialist I tend to be. And I know it's nonsense and don't really believe it, but I still feel it.
A friend pointed me to this link, following my similar blog post about finding things after a car wreck. http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/08/cops-millionaire-dentist-richard-lewis-ludwig-buys-40-in-pizza Apropos to your thoughts, as well!
This was an interesting post, as if you were walking around the subject, hands on hips....musing at yourself, stopping to scratch your chin, tap tap tap your toe. I could almost see it. Sometimes I think "Karma" and sometimes I think "God". Either way, I think there is a score settled somewhere down the road. But my thiking kinda meanders behind that woman on her way to church.
Perhaps a less existential way of looking at it is this: if you keep things that are very clearly attached to an identity-- the ID, the license, even a Smart Card, assuming it can be tracked to its owner-- then you slip just a little bit further down the slope of doing such things again. Every time you behave in a way you probably shouldn't, it becomes easier to do it next time, until you're a criminal sharing a cell with a big man named Bubba with hair on his shoulders and a smile for you that makes you butt pucker.
Wow, Jeffe, nice guy! I'd definitely want him rooting around in my mouth - not.
Welcome W&W! (oh noes, I alliterated!!) I think you'll find my posts commonly follow the process you describe...whether it gets me anywhere or not is another story.
Sierra - Good point in that your morals and buy-in with the social compact may slowly loosen if you lose your sensitivity to these things...even if it never gets to the point of the outcome you suggest!
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