Dear Thursday: Meta Debt
So there’s a turning point in my novel when the main character decides to take on a huge act of atonement. I’ve never done this myself, but all the talk about money this week has gotten me to thinking:
Is there such a thing as karmic debt?
I don’t think I’ve broken any hearts, but I have crushed a few hopes and I’ve also disappointed people and broken off friendships in my lifetime. And in the past, whenever I had my heart broken or have been let down or been let go by a friend, there was a sense that I although, I was hurt, I deserved it, that maybe I was paying my karmic dues. And if I didn’t deserve it, I felt that I would be rewarded in some manner for my pain.
In a way I loved getting dumped, because I was that much closer to atoning for the boys I myself had dumped and maybe finding The One.
Many of you know the story about how I received an email from CH, asking me out on a date, while I was on the phone with my sister, telling her that I was going to leave this terrible place called Los Angeles, because my future here felt hopeless. Coincidence or was CH a reward for enduring two whole miserable years in a city, which I didn’t learn to love until after I met him? I dunno.
Some days I belive in fate and that my life will work out as long as I strive to be a good person. Other days, I think that there is nothing such as meta debt, and that we’re all just so scared to face the chaos that is life that we make up concepts like karma, fate, atonement to deal with the fear.
Either way, I often wish I was a better person: Kinder, smarter, funnier, wiser, braver, all of that and more. But if that were the case, then I’d probably be someone else entirely. So I guess the trick of it all is to work with what you got, try to be nice, and only worry about karma when you’re deciding if you should “do the right thing.”
Opins on this subject very welcome in the comments.
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