karma, the secret, and sliding doors.

* hi. recently someone asked, “do you believe in karma?” to a group of people and most quickly answered, “no”. i hesitated, partly because i had forgotten the lesson in grade 12 world religion class where we learned the in-depth definition, and partly because the simplified notion of “what comes around goes around” is something in which i totally believe. i suppose there’s a lot of magical connotation around the belief, but at it’s most simple and distilled form, karma encourages people to do good and be good to others and in turn, the universe will impose good things back. to contextualize the conversation that sparked the question, “do you believe in karma?”, we were discussing a person who had, for lack of a better phrase, screwed over everyone close to he/she. we wondered if he/she would continue to coast easily through a privileged life. well, i think that shitty people eventually find themselves in shitty circumstances at some point. but if this is determined by free will (if you believe human beings have the agency to choose their own destiny) or determinism (everything from the origin of the planet has a set course driven by predetermined cause and effect relationships) is interesting.

the nuances of this idea are not new and certainly disputed. there are so many variations, and depending on which side you’re on, it really impacts the way in which you live your life. for example, the popular book and movie ‘the secret‘, which is based on the law of attraction – if you think positively and output positive frequencies, positive energy, events and circumstances will come back your way. there are a million stories of people who swear this way of living and thinking works, and that if you truly put positive energy behind something you want, it will happen.

now, i hate to be the person who sits on the fence, but i’m going to. there is truth to the law of attraction as it relates to getting things you want (assuming you believe in free will over determinism, which if you buy into ‘the secret’, you most definitely do). like a kid who wants a bike. every day he tells his parents, “i want a bike.” every friday when he gets his allowance, he says, “thanks mom and dad! i’m saving it for a bike!” even though he doesn’t like broccoli, he eats it and says, “i’ll eat the broccoli so i’m strong enough to ride my bike!” the parents finally get tired of the kid talking about the bike and since the little guy was so darn committed, they buy him a bike. boom. law of attraction.

where ‘the secret’ falls down, at least 2 clear examples i can see, is 1) limitations of physical human ability and 2) relationships. regarding the first, you might decide you want to be a world champion figure skater when you’re 40 years old. if you’ve never skated before or you just suck at skating, no matter how much positive energy you throw out there, you’re probably not going to realize your goal. regarding the second, you can’t force another person to fall in love with you. arguably, if you’re positive enough, the person you want to love you back will do so based on the law of attraction. this works if he/she were a feasible match for you in the first place – if you’re throwing a bunch of positive energy and hormones his/her way, he/she will probably be more receptive to you than if you were shy and avoided him/her. but if a person doesn’t like you back, no amount of positive thinking is going to change that.

i guess, like with karma, i don’t believe there’s some higher power governing whether we’re good or bad or positive or negative, like in the movie, ‘the adjustment bureau‘. i do, however, believe in cause and effect. the 1998 movie, ‘sliding doors‘ starring gwyneth paltrow illustrates this best – the dichotomy between free will and determinism and cause/effect vs. karma/the secret. the movie splits into 2 parallel universes and shows the outcome of each; the first in which she catches her train, and the second in which she misses it. although the people and objects are on the same course around her, she interacts with them differently in both scenarios, affecting the outcome of the subsequent circumstances. some might feel when they miss a train or are late to work that it is their fault, and it is. but the moments and circumstances that precede and follow an event are all part of a larger chain reaction.

so, determinism. very controversial. personally, i don’t think free will and determinism have to be opposing beliefs, but let me explain the difference schools of thought first. free will is our ability as humans to make choices, well, freely. conscious or unconscious, we make choices all the time, but how predetermined our choices are or will be in the future is a touchy subject. as such, there’s 4 main variations:

1) causal determinism – future events are facilitated by past and present events combined with the laws of nature. if you buy this idea, then you believe that if some person (or god or whatever) had all knowledge of past and present, the future would be 100% predictable down to the last detail.

2) logical determinism – past, present and future propositions are either deemed true or false. i didn’t take logic in university, so how this works goes right over my head, but i think it means every problem posed in the universe is either solvable or unsolvable, flawed or unflawed, and how that translates to real life, i’m not really sure.

3) theological determinism – there’s a god that decides the future of all human beings using some kind of omniscience. this idea is taught across the hindu, jain, buddhist and sikh religions.

4) biological determinism - all behaviours, beliefs, and desires are fixed by our genetic/biochemical make-up, which is affected by genes and environment.

since i’m not about the religious angle (not to mention ‘the adjustment bureau’ was pretty far-fetched) or the logical angle as my mathematical abilities are dismal, i’m more in the causal/biological camp. some people don’t like the thought that the future could be predicted. to that, i argue that no one will ever have all knowledge of past and present events and laws of nature for the entire universe all at once. thus, no one would be able to predict the future. in theory they could. but no one will. i’m ok with that.

if a person’s behaviours, beliefs and desires are mean-spirited, other people will probably end up not liking that person and will be less likely to help him or her out on his or her path through life. this path is a result of a chain of reactions that preceded it and the person is a result of another chain. all these chains mix and mingle and interact and change and if we think about it too much we would go crazy. i used to plan and then get disappointed when things didn’t work out as planned. i find i’m much happier if i allow things to be spontaneous. this way, you are never disappointed, but always surprised. i like surprises.

i think the best way to think about all of these thoughts and theories is we all have dreams and ambitions – some more than others – and they are the result of who we are genetically, which is a result of things that preceded us. we pursue some because we want them more than others. some things work out because they were meant to. some things work out because they weren’t meant to. and if we can find comfort in the fact that the things we wanted that never came to be just weren’t meant to, despite what we feel were our best efforts, then at least we can find peace with our past and avoid anxiety about our future.

what do you believe?

k *