A Note on Karma
Last night, I finally saw Inception.
About two minutes into the film, a couple sat down behind me and proceeded to freely pepper the film with obvious commentary and eating sound effects nothing short of bovine.
Needless to say, I hated these people. My repressed Anglican skin crawled and boiled with anger at their lack of consideration and respect. I seethed silently and missed half of the film compressing my anger into that abdominal place that is slowly but certainly becoming a tumor.
I mentally scrambled, “What can I do to fix this situation!?” I thought of addressing the pair verbally in a number of tones, weighing the manipulative value of earnestness versus aggression. I even considered a psychological approach, fantasizing about matter-of-factly informing them, “Every time you make a sound, I’m gonna hold my hand right here like this so you can’t see, okay?” Then I remembered this is America and they were probably holding.
The only thing that finally calmed me down was thinking about karma. “It’s okay, Claire, karma will get them. Karma…”
But is karma really relevant here?
I’m thinking more and more that the Western notion of karma is just a means for liberal white people such as myself to support and enforce a ridiculous and stifling non-confrontational culture by incorrectly re-appropriating yet another thing that we don’t really understand but that we know made sense when brown people did it.
Ugh, I annoy me.
