The idea of karma is one that's been on my mind a fair amount recently. Does the universe really work that way? The concept has been at the forefront of my frontal lobe, I suppose, because of the massive amount of psychologically invasive literature I've spent the past two or three months pouring through. At some point, I lost my lust for completing Clive Barker's Weaveworld in a single sitting, and I picked up Judith Guest's Ordinary People. As much as I treasure the film (and consider it to be one of the greatest in American history), I figured I ought to read the novel to see whether or not the two compare, to find out where they diverge. I felt some measure of inner turmoil, mostly in reading from the perspective of the patient and his family. I spent so many years of my life sitting across the desks from men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and their children, teenagers and their case workers - taking down more than mere statistical information, medication lists, and medical history: really prying into the private lives of their homes and jobs and bedrooms in an effort to create the most detailed treatment plans that could be utilized by their doctors and nurses and therapists and nutritionists to try to get them back on track. My interactions with them, literally hundreds of them (I'd write of possibly one thousand or more, but I may be embellishing the figure... then again, maybe not), almost always began and ended within the space of about twenty to thirty minutes: from the critical moment when I'd introduce myself, my position, and explain the purpose of the nursing assessment to the point at which I'd review the contents of the treatment plan I was beginning to create and get them to sign and date and time the document before giving them the best possible orientation to their respective unit. Guest's novel tells the story about what happens to those people long after the assessment has been completed, the treatment plan incorporated into a full chart, and the patient discharged back into the conundrum that led them to an inpatient status in the first place. The book reminded me not so much of the reason that I originally took the job that eventually burned me out on a lot of things in life, but of the countless times when I wondered if I was doing enough to help people after so many previous years of living my life as one of them. I wondered whether or not I'd repaid some of that debt.
I wonder about comeuppances and just desserts and the ideas of reciprocity, redemption, and atonement. From what point can one be certain that he has repaid his debts to society, or simply to the people around him? If only the theoretical debts, the kind that really matter in life, were as easy to justify and delineate as those that you can write down in a budget and give credit and debit toward when balancing a checkbook and licking envelopes and sticking stamps.
It's late now, way past my bedtime, I suppose. I'm due for David W. Hylan, Jr.'s famed waffles at ten o'clock this morning... a mere five hours from now (and I've been wishing for an invitation to sample the waffles he's posted about on Facebook for... well, years really), but I've got all these thoughts in my head, and I've already filled several pages of my journal tonight with all sorts of ideas that somehow relate to this post. As usual, I'm re-evaluating and thinking way too much, wondering if I've developed into that type of Type A personality that spends so much time making lists and making plans and trying to adhere to doing the next right thing and the next thing right that I forget to live and concern myself with all that which really makes me happy.
My earlier journal entry was all about my pseudo-revelations/non-new-year-resolutions related to my life in 2012. I spent about six or seven pages, still avoiding the idea of resolutions, describing the idea of my ideal year. I wrote of everything that I would really like to see happen for myself, for my mom, for my dog, for all the important things in my life. At one point, I looked up and mused over the fact that I was writing of potential bliss. Bliss for myself and bliss for others...all of that which would really bring me pleasure, and here I was watching the second part of War and Remembrance, the episode that describes the planning and implementation of what went on at the camps in Europe during the second world war. Something of a paradox, really. Me writing of everything that I really hope I deserve, especially after completing this past, really difficult year that was 2011. And watching the unspeakable arrogance and horror of what the Nazis did. I was upset with myself for even thinking that I had it bad enough to think that I deserved anything.
After the segments were over, Mom and I discussed how unsettling the whole idea is, knowing what we know now of the events that occurred not so long before our lifetimes. She said something to the effect of the perpetrators of the violence having karma come back to them for their actions. I told her that I didn't think that karma could gratify and satisfy the punishment that was actually deserved. Hence the idea for this post. Hence another scattered, incoherent, very-late-night stream-of-consciousness diatribe over whether or not I'm really a guy who has put enough sweat and energy into gleaning a few good things from life.
The truth is, in spite of all those hours that add up to days and weeks - perhaps a month or more when all lined out in chronological time - of trying to help other people really doesn't feel as if it's earned me any of the things I described as hoping to happen in 2012 for me. And two things about that really bother me. One is the fact that I believe that the universe would work to such an extent with karma that it's not until one has made incredible, as-yet-undetermined sacrifice that one gets the best things he hopes for. The second is that even now, after all this time of living right and doing all that I can to be a better person, I still have the sense that I don't deserve what I want. How does one just let go of those ideas and allow himself to be happy? Especially when I consider the fact that I still spend an awful lot of time tending to the needs of others, a lot of time talking other people off of window ledges, so to speak.
When I concluded my journal entry, I wrote that it could all happen, though. All the great and wonderful things I described and wish and hope will happen for me and for those around me really could come to pass. I just might find the perfect formula for getting out of debt and not worrying so much about money. I really can accomplish all of my personal and professional goals. I might actually finish something that I start creatively and find the ways and means to pursue it even further. What's more, I just might actually find love, or, rather, love - true love - may come to find me.
No matter what, there's always hope.
I'm tired. And I have little doubt that I'll come here to read this after a few hours' sleep, and I'll wonder what the hell I was talking about. Maybe I'll revise it for more coherence later. Maybe I'll just let it rest and expand on it with more clarity. Maybe I'll wake up with a little more hope and belief in my deserved-ness than I seem to have had lately. No matter what, I just hope I get to a point where I can actually look around and think to myself that I'm happy once more. For whatever reason, I lost my link to happiness at some point, but isn't it true that tomorrow is another day?
And no matter how or where or when you've lost that happiness link, it's never too late to put on a pair of glasses and do a little searching to try to find it and bring it back... right?
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