Feeling the pressure of life

The notion of independence is laughable in this world. While we mine the ground for minerals and we cut down trees for resources, we consider ourselves independent. We plough our airplanes through the sky, polluting it, and we consider ourselves independent. We think we are not dependent on the skies and the space, the sun, the air and the rain.
How did we become independent? What are we independent of?

We consider rich nations developed. We think they are more independent than under-developed nations that depend on them. We think that rich nations are a law in of themselves. That they can afford to feel more self-righteous with their wealth and power than underdeveloped nations.

But what man is a law in himself? And what nation is a law in themself? What corporation exists for themself and by themself and is truly independent?

We consider those who are dependent on us a burden. But we are all a burden on each other. We are all bearing the weight of each other while living on earth. I have to bear the snobbery of those better than me. I have to bear my own insecurities in relation to them. They burden me with how beautiful, handsome, rich, popular and loved they are. I feel the pressure. And it hurts.

And they feel the pressure of having more than others. They feel guilty. They wish the world was more fair and they regret that it is not. They didn't choose to be born more beautiful and with a natural ability to attract others. They didn't create the inequality of life. They are trying to survive it as much as I am. And it sucks.

And without accepting the notion of karma, all we can engage in is mudslinging on each other. The rich feel righteous about their hard earned money. And the poor feel righteous about their pain.
Rich nations feel righteous about their hard earned power through their economic, militaristic and political wheeling and dealing. And poor nations feel righteous about the indignity and inhumanity of their pain, poverty, degradation and suffering. There is a whole media enterprise and academia industry that thrives on making their careers off of the indignity and inhumanity being suffered in the world. Don't think they are without motive.

It is a tough tough world out there. And we are all in the midst of it, playing different roles.
Corporations feel self-righteous about holding unto their profits. They feel good about hiring top lawyers to battle patent turf wars. And other corporations that are falling behind feel self-righteous about cutting corners because life is not fair. How are they, who are weaker, supposed to battle it out in a world that is not fair without cutting corners?
And then there is the media judging bigger from smaller and weaker from taller feeling self-righteous about seeing the truth. 

We take sides and we justify ourselves taking sides. We justify our biases because the world is not fair. We support women over men or men over women.

So who is independent? Who is independent of public opinion? Who is independent of economic crisis? Who is independent of political change or the impact of political change? Who doesn't feel the heat of life in this pressure cooker called earth? Apparently we all do. They are calling that global warming.

We are all coping with the pressure and burden of life in our own way.

Rich nations suffer from guilt. They shield their eyes from social responsibility. If the world believed in karma, it would be easier on both the rich and the poor. It would be easier for both the powerful and the weak. Karma is not the panacea for all the problems of the world. This material world is to be neither hated nor loved. It is as it is.

No nation is independent from another as much as no human is independent from another. All corporations in an industry affect what happens to the industry. And the state of the industry in turn impacts the corporation.


Karma allows everyone to enjoy and suffer their lot in life without feeling the need to justify it to everyone. Karma allows us to accept personal pain without holding everyone around us responsbile. Karma goes against all notions of social justice. And at the same time it is the ultimate social justice because it says that man can never divide and conquer this world to satisfy everyone all the time. Communism tried and failed miserably.

I don't have the answers to everything. I too feel the pressure of life as all others do. And I am responding to that pressure in my own way.