Karma Is Difficult to Write For
I strongly believe in karma, meaning that karma immediately punishes me when I intentionally do something inconsiderate. The good news is that karma rewards me when I intentionally do something nice.
For example, five years ago, my wife and I celebrated my birthday on a date night. My wife made reservations at a nice restaurant for the occasion, and we both wore our best. On the drive, I was excitedly talking about how good the food would be as I merged onto the Fifteen freeway. I neglected to check my mirrors, and the car beside me had to slam on its brakes to prevent an accident. Meanwhile, I blissfully moved into their lane.
When the driver locked up their tires, this caused a blowout, and the driver rapidly pulled over. When I noticed what happened, I could not merge into the breakdown lane because it was blocked off due to construction. Of course, I yelled in frustration and felt terrible. This event cast a dark mood over what should have been a pleasant evening. Yet, that is not the whole story. I could have pulled over a mile later and returned to compensate the driver for their blown tire. But I was wearing dress shoes… Karma was watching.
The next day, my car ran out of gas even though the gas gauge indicated a quarter full. It took three weeks (because the part was not in stock), and $1,000 to fix my dashboard gas gage. Two weeks later, my car ran out of gas again because the sensor was bad (a double failure, not the garage’s fault). This took another three weeks and $1,500 to fix the fuel tank sensor/pump/filter. A week later, I found my gas gauge stuck at half full, and the garage had ordered another part. Fortunately, the garage paid for the labor and part. Taking an impartial view, these are unrelated events, but in my mind, this punishment came from my driving failure.
I did not always believe in karma, but my life changed in my mid-twenties. I was working at Kinkos (a chain of copy stores) and began noticing patterns. My job was making copies and working the cash register while getting a dollar more than minimum wage. (I was supposed to make minimum wage, but accounting made a mistake, and I did not correct it.) This employment was after college, and it was degrading to have an electrical engineering degree and not get a real job because of the bad early 90s environment.
The pattern I noticed was that when a customer acted friendly, I was on my best behavior. I still had to act friendly when they were mean, but I did a sloppy job and sometimes overcharged them. I began observing this logic in other parts of my life and saw the strong connection between my behavior and other people/events.
Now, when something terrible happens to me, I take a moment to examine the past few days and can always identify an action I took that led to the misfortune. I want to stress that this is an immediate/proportional cause and effect.
However, I am not explaining my relationship with karma with the hope that the readers of this article will follow my path. That is something that you will have to discover for yourselves or not. I have learned that this pattern is vague, and the feedback is difficult to follow.
Instead, I wanted to discuss that while the influence of karma is powerful in my life; it is difficult to include in a story. Readers require clear causes and effects in a character’s actions. Unlike my life, this means readers do not automatically expect a direct correlation between a bad/good action and consequences. Instead, all consequences need to be rationally and clearly explained.
On the flip side, readers dislike it when the bad person instantly loses while the good person always wins. Those kinds of awful plots are right out of bad ‘50s westerns. Modern readers need bad characters that are a constant threat, meaning that the only way they can be stopped is by the good characters. And good characters must fail so they can push through bad situations. Do some good deed and then be rewarded? Too campy.
This means that karma makes plots read wrong to me. The bad guy musts be punished. That’s life! Fortuity, I understand this limitation and try hard to develop enticing plots where karma takes a back seat. Honestly, it has been an uphill battle. Or is that just Karma fighting to be heard? I will never know.
You’re the best -Bill
September 04 2019 Updated August 10, 2024
For example, five years ago, my wife and I celebrated my birthday on a date night. My wife made reservations at a nice restaurant for the occasion, and we both wore our best. On the drive, I was excitedly talking about how good the food would be as I merged onto the Fifteen freeway. I neglected to check my mirrors, and the car beside me had to slam on its brakes to prevent an accident. Meanwhile, I blissfully moved into their lane.
When the driver locked up their tires, this caused a blowout, and the driver rapidly pulled over. When I noticed what happened, I could not merge into the breakdown lane because it was blocked off due to construction. Of course, I yelled in frustration and felt terrible. This event cast a dark mood over what should have been a pleasant evening. Yet, that is not the whole story. I could have pulled over a mile later and returned to compensate the driver for their blown tire. But I was wearing dress shoes… Karma was watching.
The next day, my car ran out of gas even though the gas gauge indicated a quarter full. It took three weeks (because the part was not in stock), and $1,000 to fix my dashboard gas gage. Two weeks later, my car ran out of gas again because the sensor was bad (a double failure, not the garage’s fault). This took another three weeks and $1,500 to fix the fuel tank sensor/pump/filter. A week later, I found my gas gauge stuck at half full, and the garage had ordered another part. Fortunately, the garage paid for the labor and part. Taking an impartial view, these are unrelated events, but in my mind, this punishment came from my driving failure.
I did not always believe in karma, but my life changed in my mid-twenties. I was working at Kinkos (a chain of copy stores) and began noticing patterns. My job was making copies and working the cash register while getting a dollar more than minimum wage. (I was supposed to make minimum wage, but accounting made a mistake, and I did not correct it.) This employment was after college, and it was degrading to have an electrical engineering degree and not get a real job because of the bad early 90s environment.
The pattern I noticed was that when a customer acted friendly, I was on my best behavior. I still had to act friendly when they were mean, but I did a sloppy job and sometimes overcharged them. I began observing this logic in other parts of my life and saw the strong connection between my behavior and other people/events.
Now, when something terrible happens to me, I take a moment to examine the past few days and can always identify an action I took that led to the misfortune. I want to stress that this is an immediate/proportional cause and effect.
However, I am not explaining my relationship with karma with the hope that the readers of this article will follow my path. That is something that you will have to discover for yourselves or not. I have learned that this pattern is vague, and the feedback is difficult to follow.
Instead, I wanted to discuss that while the influence of karma is powerful in my life; it is difficult to include in a story. Readers require clear causes and effects in a character’s actions. Unlike my life, this means readers do not automatically expect a direct correlation between a bad/good action and consequences. Instead, all consequences need to be rationally and clearly explained.
On the flip side, readers dislike it when the bad person instantly loses while the good person always wins. Those kinds of awful plots are right out of bad ‘50s westerns. Modern readers need bad characters that are a constant threat, meaning that the only way they can be stopped is by the good characters. And good characters must fail so they can push through bad situations. Do some good deed and then be rewarded? Too campy.
This means that karma makes plots read wrong to me. The bad guy musts be punished. That’s life! Fortuity, I understand this limitation and try hard to develop enticing plots where karma takes a back seat. Honestly, it has been an uphill battle. Or is that just Karma fighting to be heard? I will never know.
You’re the best -Bill
September 04 2019 Updated August 10, 2024
