The Rules

Outside my window are children who are in the midst of deciding rules for their game.  Arguments have ensued.  I have been sick for 2 days this week.  I know they will resolve this and eventually play a complicated game of hide and seek that they understand and no one else does.

But everyday they seemed to spend at least 20 minutes arguing over the rules.  Children are very keenly aware of justice.  I think humans are born with an awareness of fairness.  Perhaps many animals are.  Remember being in grade school or younger and  how deeply an unfairness felt?  This is probably the most unfair thing the uncaring universe does to us.  Equip us with a sense of justice in a universe that is essentially indifferent to justice.

The absolute unfairness of the universe has not yet been taught to children. They tattle to any figure of authority that is within their reach because telling the injustice feels like it will resolve it.  Perhaps the unknowable universe will resolve itself and make this injustice go away.  But of course it doesn’t.

Of course, our innate sense of justice is what led to society working.  To the rules and laws that make a civilization work.  But it does warp itself as society gets bigger and more complex.    And as we grow up and realize that justice is only fleeting and rarely applied.  You could almost apply the rule of speeding tickets to all of life.  How often do you speed?  How often do you get a ticket?  One begins to think the injustice is when justice actually targets you.

But the reality is that the universe is indifferent to justice or fairness.  You get a speeding ticket or cancer, not because you did or did not deserve it, but just because the universe is random.  Which feels so unfair, doesn’t it?