No Justice

Tucson has the most amazing skies.

Life isn’t fair. 

Hard work isn’t rewarded. 

Luck doesn’t balance out. 

(Claims about luck especially piss me off, as discussed in Dan Dennett is an arrogant asshole.) 

This is pretty easy to see. How is it fair to be born a chicken? Or to be born in Syria or Sudan? Or even in the U.S. – how could there be justice for someone born to a homeless, mentally-disturbed, substance-abusing mother? (Especially compared to someone born to multi-millionaire highly-educated parents.) 

And yet, many humans have this underlying sense that people “deserve” what they get. If things are bad for someone else, they just needed to work harder, exercise more, eat a certain way.* 

People like Dennett, Steve Jobs, Michael Phelps** are given platforms to lie lie lie. Well-off people eat that shit up. Thinking they deserve their good fortune is why many people insist they have free will.  

This is, of course, simply untrue. 

I bring this up because this belief makes the world much worse than it needs to be. Our sense that people “deserve” what they have means that we don’t have an appropriate amount of compassion for individuals we could help. We can prance around and yammer about shrimp or AI with our fellow well-off people and not feel guilty.

We don’t have to be like Dennett. As part of our mindful routine, we can try to catch ourselves when we think that people “deserve” their lot in life. Recognizing our good fortune can deepen our gratitude. Realizing that no one "deserves" to suffer can help us make things better. 

**From LMR:

It feels like everyone who succeeds thinks it is just because they wanted it more. Fish-man Michael Phelps was on Colbert saying anyone can be anything they want. Sorry, but no one without once-in-a-generation physical skills will ever out-swim Phelps. And there was no way Phelps could have then turned himself into a Tiger-beating golfer, or a Nobel-winning physicist, or a brilliant and insightful memoirist.

*You don’t have to read the rest of this:

I’m the luckiest person who ever existed. I didn’t do anything to deserve that luck, and I certainly didn’t always recognize it.

But

My life shows there is no “justice.” Petty and not-petty examples:

Anne and I eat the same things. I’ve eaten plant-based years longer than she has. Yet I have to take a double-dose of statin to get my cholesterol to her level.

Of my parents and siblings, I’m the only one who really exercises (run, VO2Max work, weightlifting). But I’m the only one who keeps almost dying (tension pneumothorax, 95% occlusion of the widowmaker artery***, fall that required facial reconstruction and two neck vertebrae to be fused, etc.). 

And sleep. This is NBD compared to great suffering, but: 

I do all the sleep hygiene stuff, even things I hate like being cold (for me). My sleep still sucks. (And before you ask, “Do you do X / Did you try Y?” – Yes. Except for expensive systems like Chilipad, I’ve tried it all, including any supplement or herb you can name. BTW, the only thing that really helped me sleep was when I was on the top dose of Pregabalin, which suppresses my nervous system. “Me lose brain?”)

OTOH, Anne does none of these things. She’s on screen, doesn’t avoid eating or drinking for hours before bed, no breathing routine, and buries herself deep in blankets regardless of the temperature. She just goes to bed, falls asleep for a full night sleep, and pops up fully rested. 

Obv, I don’t begrudge her good health and amazing sleeping ability. Her happiness is more important than mine! (As readers know.) Just more examples of how people don’t “get what they deserve.”

***Also from LMR, first posted here, an example of vegans thinking people “deserve” what happens to others:

I asked a vegan doctor what preparation advice they would have if someone [me] might be having bypass surgery in a week. This person basically said not to have the surgery but go vegan instead. I asked what to do if that wasn’t an option. I never heard back.