A Thought on Easy Justice

The problem with Hammurabi's 'eye-for-an-eye' principle is that it quite simply doesn't work. This is not a new idea, that mere vengeance upon those who have wrong us will... well, will what? Take away the sting of having been wronged? Impose a feeling of guilt where there ought to be one? Offer us some sick form of satisfaction that justice has been served? Despite all of the unanswered philosophical questions surrounding justice as a whole, I can still very comfortably say that whatever justice is, it just doesn't work like that.
We sanctimonious North Americans like to smugly call such an attitude "savage", or something of the sort. Our noses fly high about these "primitive" systems of justice as we snidely remark that the only way to peacefully move on is to forgive and forget. Then, in our quieter and more intimate moments, we confide that forgiving is easy, but forgetting is not. Woe to us all who've got it so terribly wrong.
Anyone who has truly had to forgive someone could tell how difficult and painful it is. It is an action driven by love or care or affection, where although someone has harmed us in some way, we feel too strongly towards him to hold his actions against him. It's a call to mercy rather than a call for vengeance, and it does not come easily. It comes with bouts of misdirected anger and hostility and pain and regret. But each of these is smothered with love, and that love keeps everything in check. At least, sort of. It keeps us from doing things we may later regret.
Forgetting, on the other hand, is easy. It's no question that when faced with a problem, it's easier to carry on as if nothing has happened, ignore it, revisit it at a later time. Sure, this is only pretending to forget, but what is so wrong with this? We pretend to forive all the time! The difference is that by pretending to forget, we essentially lie to ourselves until, down the road, we become convinced of our own lie. By pretending to forgive, we find ourselves struggling with passive aggression and resentment. Tell me which is easier. Tell me which is more rewarding.
Another sad truth is that I'm not convinced we've left behind 'eye-for-an-eye' at all. We don't always react violently when we've been wronged, intentionally or not, but the apparent need for vengeance is certainly alive and well. The Evil Eye is still very much among us... people often wish harm upon others, and then turn around and convince themselves that they don't. Karma is a tricky game to master.
We have options. We can try to rise above our "primitive" tendencies, try to become better people, try to find less satisfaction in the misfortunes of our rivals and enemies, but this is unnatural. At the level of human nature, we can't force ourselves to be something we are not. Or, we can embrace these tendencies as tragically human, and find ways not to rise above, but to harness and master them by learning to judge each others' misgivings on a larger scale, and act accordingly. But forgiveness is an experience I personally hope everyone has to go through at some point, because it's humbling. It reminds us of our place in the Kosmos, and when faced with that we find ourselves a step closer to being truly at peace.

The best part about a rainy morning is the smell of worms in the air. There's something way too fresh about it. I don't even know if it's the worms I'm smelling, but I definitely associate the smell with the worms crawling out onto the sidewalks and streets. It's not the worms I like. The smell takes me back to a simpler time. It's a "cottage smell," and every time it rains I think of rainy cottage days, being cooped inside a small house, looking out onto the lake as the droplets drop, drop, drop. When the temperature's right, the doors stay open, and the scent of wet foliage floods the house, and there's nowhere at that moment that anybody needs to be, nothing that needs to be done. When we were children, it was the scent of an afternoon Monopoly marathon, an indoor pool-noodle fight (to my parents chagrin), a chess tournament or a galoshes-and-raincoat-clad trip to the art gallery or the Native Reserve, or Peterborough.
The only real thing that's changed over the years is that all the kids have now grown up. We don't each have our own raincoat and rubber boots anymore and we've lost the patience for Monopoly, but we've developed a taste tolerance for liquor. And so a new family bonding tradition was born. And as I sit in my office in Streetsville looking out at the rain and a full tree of dripping leaves, my heart is in another place, watching droplets drop, drop, drop into a lake, and breathing in the smell of worms.

A Quote from Joseph Conrad

"It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull."

Exam Day

It's 4:42 p.m. Exam Day. Exam starts at 7:00 p.m. I should probably be more nervous. It's not as though I've studied the material diligently every night until my brain turned to mush. I've done my work, but I've also been preoccupied with so many projects over the past three months that I really haven't been able to dedicate myself to my studies the way so many students know they should. And yet I'm not worried. I'll be okay.
I dread showing up early, as I always do, to find a classroom full of students reciting course material to each other, trying to soak up every last detail like a dripping sponge, just in case that dreaded question should come up on the paper. They will be tearing through their textbooks and notes, finding comfort in their common anxiety, though it isn't really comforting. It's never been my style. I finished studying yesterday. I looked over my notes today. I put it all away after lunch. The silence is creepy, the calm before the storm.
Waiting is unbearable. I've never been the patient type. The day before my first exam in this program a year ago, when I had no idea what to expect and no clue whether or not I was ready despite my hours of agonizing, I actually had plans to find a quiet patch of grass on the campus before the exam to do some yoga. It never came to that. I sat in rush hour traffic, listening to music, telling myself that 'hey, I learned how to drive once upon a time! I can do this, too!' That only brought me enough comfort not to faint in the driver's seat in the middle of the highway. I read a magazine in the half hour leading up to the exam, I forget which magazine it was. I was reading an article about how word processors have made us illiterate, and the article made mention of how Nietzsche's writing style changed when he came to own a typewriter. He stopped writing essays and began writing in aphorisms. That I knew exactly what the author was talking about made me feel better still, and I wrote the exam, and proceeded to fight off nervous fits for the next three months waiting for a mark I did not expect to be thrilled about... until I found out that I made honours.
So here I am, filling time before yet another exam. This will be my third in this program. It is 4:54. I've plugged in the kettle, not sure what to think of the fact that in six minutes I'll be leaving the office and hitting the highway. It's become a ritual. A large cup of tea in a travel mug that will stay closed until I reach the school, so that it's still hot when I open it. A book to read in the event I need something to do with my hands; today it's "Occidental Mythology" by Joseph Cambell... completely unrelated to law clerking. My iPod is charged up and waiting for me, and I made sure to throw my earphones in my bag. I've set up a tea date for right after the exam with my best friend to take the edge off. All that's left is to make sure I go to the bathroom before the exam (and avoid making a mistake I've learned from several times over, and probably will again), and finish earlier than I need to. And come out on top.

Finding The Abyss

"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Friedrich Nietzsche

A wise friend once told me how I'll know who my friends are. I was in my early twenties at the time, half-way through university and silly enough to believe that the friends I'd had since highschool were the people I would grow old with. My friend often laughed at my youthful naivete. He told me that when I find myself in that desperate moment, standing at the edge of the precipice and looking into the abyss, my true friend would be the one who calls me suddenly, unexpectedly, just to ask me how I'm doing because he/she had been thinking about me. Isn't it a rather dreary image? I don't want to think that it's only at my moment of need that I find my true friends. Friends are bound by love and respect, and these things shouldn't be contingent on whether times are good or bad.
So I watched the sunset this past Monday, watched the sky darken and the stars slowly show their faces as I took a longer walk than usual through my favorite part of suburbia. As the hours passed, a revelation came to me. Or something like that. As I stared into the night, lost in my thoughts and the music running through my headphones, I found myself at the edge of the precipice, staring into the abyss. I know it was the abyss, because although we have yet to find the bottomless pit in the ground, I implore you to find me the person who can stare into the sky at night and not suddenly feel small. The image is cliche, and there isn't much to be done about that, but the sky is the only abyss we can know (or not know. I'm sure there are limits to the Universe, but we're nowhere near finding them, so let this one go, please), the closest possible encounter we can have with the infinite, within the physical realm. The bottomless pit does not fall out below us, but rises above! With this in mind I ask you, have you ever lay on the ground in the country looking up at a blanket of stars and not been struck by how small and petty our earthly problems are?
That moment of realization of our significance in the universe, or rather our insignificance... that's the feeling I'm talking about here. That sinking feeling is the abyss looking into you. The odd thing is that where in social situations a feeling of insignificance is a sign of imminent social suicide, when that feeling comes in such moments as gazing into the sky, the feeling of insignificance becomes a source of peace, insight, humility, and, to a certain extent, sheer joy.
So I ask you: As I stand at the edge of the precipice gazing into the only abyss I have ever known, the abyss gazing likewise into me... are you the friend who calls to me, to ask me how I've been?

Who's for breakfast?