The Flea Market Curse: Karma in Action

Karma knows no mercy.

Like any force of nature, there is no reasoning with it. Karma acts upon you and you can't fight it or make it let up any more than you can beg gravity to cut you a break when you're about to fall on your ass. 

Many times I've witnessed karmic punishment bearing down on people, and even though they fully deserve it, a tiny part of my soft heart feels sorry for them. I would make a horrible cop. "You say this is the first time you've ever done drugs? Well, okay then, but next time, I mean it, you're going to be in big trouble!"

I began this rambling meditation on karma while I was sitting at a flea market, failing to rid myself of my junk, wondering what I had done to deserve such mind-crushing boredom. I didn't care how much money I made, all I wanted was to move the stuff on to someone else and delay its ultimate destiny in a landfill, helping pollute our planet.

The whole flea market experience was painful. Preparing my wares for sale was a total drag. I had to pack everything up neatly, load it into the car then unload it onto the grass. Then I had to sit there and wait. And wait. I suppose I could have just left the junk there, but that would be irresponsible. I had created the demand, I wanted to complete the cycle and feed back into the supply.

After several hours of wasting a beautiful day, barely anything sold, and then it was time to pack up all the crap, stuff it in the car and unload it back into my house where it takes up room, doing nothing to this very moment.

Personified karma was laughing in my face! "You wanted this stuff, sucka! Here you go! Enjoy! Take more! Now you can't get rid of it! Mwaa ha ha!" Karma is apparently passive-aggressive and sounds vaguely like a gangsta rapper.

But I meant no harm! Did I really deserve karma's wrath just because I went through a Pez-dispenser collection phase? Or thought a Fitness Flyer really was a deal too good to be true? Or was impressed with the many uses of the Snuggie? Those damn infomercial people seemed so happy, I had to join in. Yet the happiness wore off quickly and all I want now is to get rid of these things, but no one wants them! So they take up space and linger. Woe to me!

I wonder if there would be any environmental problems if we were all damned by The Flea Market Curse.

The good news is, we are. The bad news is we live like we aren't. Most people throw stuff in the trash and never question how it miraculously vanishes. Meanwhile, a landfill nearby is reaching capacity, polluting their drinking water, sending back karmic retribution in a chain of events so obscure no one could possibly trace them all. Then when our water and/or land is polluted we cry, "Why has god (or fate) done this to us?" We never dare to consider blaming ourselves, even in part. None dare call it karma.

The Flea Market Curse teaches us to think in reverse. Want to stop hazardous input? Prevent output. Want to make people buy less junk? Forbid them to throw out what they buy. Want people to use less water? Let their drainage run only once a week. Want people to use less gas? Reroute exhaust pipes into the car. Want them to stop eating so much? Sew their buttholes shut. And so on.

Too extreme? Maybe, but it's all food for thought. Better we brainstorm now rather than later, because no one escapes karma.


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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

The Lifeboat-less Cruise Ship (a Climate Change fable)

Today, October 15, 2009 is Blog Action Day 2009. The topic is Climate Change. My entry follows.

Suppose you're on a luxury cruise ship (with no lifeboats) a thousand miles from anywhere.

While you're sipping your martini and sunbathing, an announcement blares over the loudspeaker. "This is your captain speaking. We've got a leak in the ship. We're all going to drown unless we get to the bottom deck and start hauling out the water as fast as it comes in. We need everyone's help!"

Being a sane, smart, non-suicidal person, you race to help, screaming for everyone else to do the same. On the way, you pass a batch of people still sunbathing. "Didn't you hear the captain?" you ask, liberally sprinkling your question with profanities too vile for this family-friendly blog.

They laugh at you. "That captain is full of crap. This ship isn't sinking."

What would you do? You could call them more vile profanities, but they are essential to your survival, so you'd want to use every manner of persuasion to get their help. You could kick them overboard so the ship had less to hold up, but that would waste time, which, according to the captain, is running out.

That's the challenge of Climate Change as allegory. Let's extract the meaning.

The captain represents the expert scientists who tell everyone there is a problem. You (starring as yourself) being sane, smart and non-suicidal, conclude the captain is an expert and knows what he's talking about. After all, you trust him to pilot the ship while you sleep, get drunk, watch bad dinner theater and marinate your privates in a hot tub alongside complete strangers and their privates. You're living every day with a trust that the skipper knows his stuff. It would be absurd to suddenly doubt his ability to judge the vessel's seaworthiness.

The arrogant deniers in the story represent, well, arrogant deniers.

I know, I know. We should respect others' opinions, but science isn't a question of preference or taste. Acknowledging Climate Change is a matter of everyone believing the experts that they rely on for everything else in their lives (scientists) from car safety to medicine to food production to whether or not a container labeled "microwave-safe" really is, on and on and on.

Can we please give scientists priority on matters of science?

Back in the day, I read science magazines a lot. I still do, though not as much. Back then (and now) all the science magazines spoke about global warming as a fact. The popular news didn't speak of it a peep. That changed when Al Gore hit the scene with An Inconvenient Truth and raised the alarm on Climate Change. Suddenly all the political (non-scientist) opponents of Mr. Gore, who have never ever discussed science in any depth, are speaking like Doctorates of Meteorology, claiming with absolute certainty that Climate Change is a hoax. I believe their dislike (or jealousy) of Al Gore has clouded their judgment.

This is what is so terrifying about Climate Change. We need everyone's participation to reverse, slow or mitigate its effects, but some people just can't stand the fact that Al Gore was the messenger. That's one psychological breakdown of Climate Change denial, but there are alternate explanations.

For example, the denial might be rooted in a disconnection with the earth and a lack of understanding of its connectedness. It's hard for short-sighted people who have never poked their heads beyond the confines of their own asses to worry about Climate Change. So what if an iceberg melts? They say. It doesn't affect my water supply. Who cares if honeybees die? I can always just go the store and get food.

Wouldn't it be great if someone wrote a book about this Earth-ignorant psychosis and titled it Where Did This Come From?

Whatever the reason for the denial, we need to overpower it. We all must appreciate the planet's fragility and act to protect it. Sadly, chucking deniers off the planet isn't possible, and we could use their help confronting global warming meaningfully.

Deniers, if Climate Change doesn't (at least to your perception) directly affect you now, it will. Look at it this way: if the planet floods and the atmosphere cooks, you won't be able to claim the moon landing was a hoax, or that Obama was born in Kenya, or that putting profit above health is a splendid idea, or hate liberal tree-huggers like me. You won't be able to do jack, because we'll all be dead. So can't we agree on this ONE thing, please? You can still hate me, just PLEASE stop denying Climate Change and work toward eliminating it with what you eat, what you drive and who you vote for.

That might go down in history as the most bizarre sales pitch ever, but in keeping with our nautical theme, I say "any port in a storm" because we need "all hands on deck."

A cruise ship without lifeboats may seem strange or contrived for the point of the fable, but I disagree. It's a perfect description for our one and only planet.

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Obama Haters Going To War Over Nobel Peace Prize

I can't remember the exact quote or who said it, but it invoked Zen along these lines: don't let praise go to your head and don't let criticism get you too uptight.

That's the attitude I always bring to awards announcements, whether I'm in the running or just observing. It doesn't matter if it’s the Emmys, the Grammys, the Oscars, the Pulitzer, the Nobel peace prize, or awards at my day job. I find I always come away from the winner announcements with the exact same three feelings.

1. There's always someone I'm happy for, that I feel was rightly recognized.
2. There's always someone I feel was neglected.
3. There's always someone I feel completely undeserving who did win, causing my mind to be involuntarily filled with disturbing visions of the winner performing unholy sex acts upon the judging committee to secure victory.

With these pre-programmed reactions in place, news of Obama's Nobel peace prize victory moved me only slightly. I was glad his efforts at peace were recognized, as I would be for anyone, but I must confess my formidable eyebrows arched a bit at the idea of something called a "peace prize" being awarded to someone who is waging war. I also haven't forgotten that Henry Kissinger won the Nobel peace prize in 1973. Yes, he negotiated a cease-fire, but he also oversaw campaigns of murder in South America.

Back to Obama. I'm glad the win recognizes that he has achieved something simply by not being a flaming asshole like President Cheney and Figurehead Bush. I'm glad the award calls a global B.S. on their macho-swagger cliché: wherein men talk tough but dodge service, lead from the rear, mock those who serve, and whine when other countries won't help their war games.

My personal goal is to do what little I can to move humanity away from war, which is why I voted for Obama. Unfortunately, as much as he has spoken of peace, I haven't seen much action. Dude's barely been in office a year and things can't happen overnight, so I'll give him time, but after nearly a decade of chickenhawks, my patience is thin.

So awards don't affect me much, but what does move me to unrestrained laughter is the predictable-as-the-sunrise rage of the Obama-haters. I especially like when they are so rabid their hate signals get crossed. For example, they claim the award means nothing while simultaneously being outraged that Obama doesn't deserve it.

Here's an experiment. Next time someone rants about what a joke it is that Obama won the Nobel, ask that person who won it last year. Chances are, they'll have no idea. If they do, ask them if that person deserved it. Who knew that all this time, Obama-haters were also experts on Nobel history? Who knew they had such in-depth authoritative opinions on who it is awarded to, why it is awarded and what it means? What a strange coincidence!

Face it haters, you hate Obama. If the dude found a penny on the sidewalk, you'd be pissed. If he stepped on a dog turd, you'd claim it was sent by God to punish him.

Obama-haters, I hear your outcry about Obama's Nobel win. I just wish you had the same rabid reaction when Bush let Osama bin Laden escape and when Cheney handed his mercenary buddies your tax money to kill Iraqi civilians.

As mad as you are about Obama's peace prize, I wish you were at least that mad about war.


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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.