We get what we deserve.

Pffft. You don’t believe that do you? I don’t. I mean, I didn’t think so. I think… maybe somewhere deep down in there, I’m programmed to believe this, though. I know you’ve thought it too: If I do good, then good will come to me. We also like to tell each other: Bad people will “get theirs.” These delusions keep us going.

And why wouldn’t we think that? We’re trained from an early age to believe in rewards and consequences. Whether you grew up watching Disney movies and reading fairytales or learning the parables of the Bible, you were taught to be a good person through positive and negative reinforcement. This, then, evolves from the easy and superficial into the grown-up and severe—some omniscient score card, you might say. But if not your parents or teachers or older siblings looking over your shoulder, who is keeping score? The universe? God? You? Tallying up your good deeds and sacrifices, waiting to cash them in for some Get Out of a Jam Free Card?

You know this is complete bullshit, right?

But does that change the monologue you’re having inside your head? Are you still shocked when liars and thieves make it out seemingly unscathed? When bad people win the lottery? Get the girl? Do you tell yourself that their behavior will catch up to them? Does that make you feel better? Do you believe that?

No amount of hindsight rationalizing can blur the truth here. Life is wholly unfair. Bad people win. Good people lose. Good people die. Good people die too soon. Not just good people, amazing people die. Needed people. Talented people. People with so much to offer the world. People who inspire others. Good people who deserve good things die.

Fuck.

Some good people have died in the last few months. Amazing people. People whose lives meant so much to so many other lives. And I just can’t reconcile this in my brain. Even if I know what I know. Even then.

I know some of you have your religion. While it’s not my intention to shit all over that, religion isn’t a good enough answer for me. These are just my opinions, of course. “God” is so good at being a catch-all for the unknown and the unfair. It’s a nice way to comfort yourself, to bandage wounds. But that’s all it is. It’s something we’ve invented to do just that. And why? Because it’s too hard to believe in nothing.

The truth is… the world is precarious. Just because we have a conscience doesn’t mean the universe does. In fact, that’s what makes it so beautiful. We, as humans, spend our lives trying to figure it all out, expecting some predictable outcome… like how Cinderella wins her prince or how the slow-moving, but determined, tortoise finishes first.

But we don’t live in a children’s book.

We love our patterns and scales and even numbers. We spin our wheels trying to create some bigger picture from all of these random pieces, like trying to put together a bad jigsaw puzzle. So when shit doesn’t add up and the scales don’t balance, we’re left in the middle of the floor, sleepless, on our hands and knees, surrounded by all these pieces, thinking maybe we just aren’t getting it. Maybe there’s another way.

But there’s nothing to get. And even in knowing that, it doesn’t make it any lighter.

Hang onto each other. If we are all we have, we are all we have, you know?

mt