Thirst

If we crave justice the way a drowning man craves air? Our appetite will go unfulfilled. There is no justice. You know that from me already. I might be wrong, but no one has pointed out my error. Justice, as I’ve said, is an equal and appropriate response. It is the balancing of the scales. How, I ask, is that possible? Some certain material restitution can be provided, but what of the emotional, the spiritual cost? What of the loss of faith? It must be, if there is justice, that it can concern itself only with the material. This is an unsatisfactory answer to me. Property is the least important of our inalienable rights.

I said, half jokingly tonight, that there were a few people I’d kill on sight. One of them is named X. Someone said it wasn’t very smart of me to tell people the name of someone I was going to kill. Oh, nobody here will ever hear about it. It takes weeks for missing persons to become news. Ha ha. Obviously, the subtext was that there is no justice. We have to make our own justice. Which is illegal. A double-bind.

What then can we do? In a material universe that is destined for heat death, where every atom will slow and become still until it crystallizes or dissolves into infinitesimal foam and then into nothingness, what balance will there be between darkness and light? There will be no light. And here, now, where joys are small and grief is large, and comfort is largely theoretical, what are we to do? We console ourselves that the joy of the new life given into our care with the birth of a baby will be sufficient to assuage the later death of that child. Life, and death -- a balance, a material balance. And we tell ourselves that the joy justifies the grief. A philosophical solution.

How can we counteract the random maliciousness of this world?

It must be through spontaneous acts of kindness -- motiveless, the way cruelty is. We must be light. We must be gentle, and honorable, and graceful in our hearts.

Do I have a point? Well, my point is obvious. Whether or not I have an effect is the question. Everything I say is talking to myself.


J