“Again,
good fortune, unworthily improved, has flung some into ruin.
“To
some the right of punishing is committed that they may use it for the exercise
and trial of the good, and the punishment of evil men.
“And
just as there is no league between good and bad men, so also the bad cannot
either agree among themselves: no, with their vices tearing their own
consciences asunder, they cannot agree with themselves, and do often perform
acts which, when done, they perceive that they should not have done.”
—from Book
4, Prose 6
Providence
will indeed dispense justice in an odd variety of ways, often the ones we least
expect, and yet it always manages to get straight to the point. It only remains
for me to embrace or run away from the opportunity I have been given to become
better, to return what I have wrongly taken.
It doesn’t
at first seem to make sense that good fortune can actually become a punishment,
for example, though it only takes some hard experience to recognize that having
something can be just as much of a curse as not having something. I should not
assume that the rich, or powerful, or popular have it better, because those
conditions, like all others, only become good or bad when accompanied by virtue
or vice.
The most
dissatisfied person I have ever known, constantly racked by anxiety, doubt, and
unfulfilled longing, had also been provided with most every worldly blessing
one could imagine.
I don’t
think it ever occurred to her that her emptiness was a consequence of what she chose
to value, not of what she may or not have received. As long as I knew her, she
would seek out more pleasures, strive to achieve greater fame, and tirelessly
work her way up the social ladder. It all ended up being salt rubbed into the
wounds.
I am, so
many years later, still moved to tears whenever I remember her own tears.
I will often
forget yet another aspect of Providential justice, that while I am certainly
subject to it in every aspect of my life, with all of the foolish and selfish
things I have done, I will also, in however humble a way, myself become a means
of distributing that justice, even when I am not fully aware of it.
I have
rarely been put in a position of formal authority, and that is probably for the
best. I have a difficult enough time managing myself, and so I can hardly be
asked to manage anyone else. Nevertheless, on those few occasions where it fell
on me to dish out rewards and punishments, I became acutely aware that the
responsibility cannot be taken lightly.
My own
superiors expected me to censure students and other faculty, or if they became
too much trouble, to demand that they be expelled or fired. The basic premise was
almost always the same, that when someone was stirring the pot, they needed to
be silenced or terminated. It was rarely an exercise in pursuing the good, most
often just a policy of saving face and tossing out the garbage.
I would try
to think of ways to heal a wound, and this was seen as being too lenient. In a
world where we think it best to right a wrong only by taking things away, it
was probably precisely that. However naïve it may seem, I always thought there
were better solutions.
All
sorts of things can serve to punish, even things that may at first look like
rewards. Have I helped others, in whatever form, to redeem themselves? That
would weigh on my mind throughout my meager professional life, just as it did
when I tried to raise my own children.
I must
finally remember that the greatest penalty that comes from vice is in the vice
itself, that the constant disagreement and conflict it engenders are a deeply
torturous type of suffering.
Loving
people will be hard-pressed to find common ground with hateful people, and yet hateful
people can certainly find no common ground in their own circles. They are
already at war with themselves to begin with, and then further at war with
everyone else. Their malice inherently rejects the possibility of understanding
and compassion.
Having
been there, and done that, I can think of no greater suffering than such a
nastiness in my own soul. Looking at it from the positive side, I can also think
of no greater chance to make the wrong in me right.
Written in 11/2015
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