Karma and a Keyboard

Edition #37 — Mon, 21 Oct 2002

A Matter Of Trust

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet."

That biblical excerpt found its way into my horoscope a few months back [www.freewillastrology.com]. Another posed the question: "what's the best way to respond when someone throws a pie in your face?" suggesting I turn the other cheek, being kind, even thankful, towards my enemies.

Over the years I've experienced my share of pearl tramplings and unwelcome pie tossings. What I didn't expect was that those tramplers and tossers are usually those closest to me; people I've trusted.

TRUST — what a concept! Who can you trust? In a world where life begins in single-minded biological selfishness and, aided by lawyers and greedy relatives, often ends on the same note, it's hard to know with whom to place such a precious commodity as our faith. The low road of distrust seems easiest to travel — no mountains to climb, and it's all downhill.

Suspicion is the path of least resistance for our egos, those SELF(ish) preservation machines that each of us has idling in our psychic garage. But even in the Trust Highlands, it's not easy knowing which "spirit in the material world" truly deserves the benefit of our doubt.

To paraphrase an old adage: "screw me once, it's your fault; screw me twice, it's mine!" After being screwed a few times, we may start treating everyone with the same indiscriminate blanket of suspicion as those who've done us wrong.

Yet, labelling everyone a "bad risk" is unfair, especially if it's not true. Sure, had I used such prejudice more often, I'd have less wear and tear on my heart. But I'd also be paranoid and miserable — and without hope. That would suck.

Experience Or Baggage?

We've all had our trust abused, then lived to recount and regret our mistakes. Truth is, trust abusers get us when our guard is down; when we're being human instead of acting like snarling dogs protecting our turf. After several disappointments, we may vow to "never again" trust another soul, hoping avoidance will protect us. And then we do it again anyway.

Often, the problem is our own expectations, good or bad. They're something we create, thus making us co-conspirators in our own disappointments. Expect the worst and you usually get it. But blaming ourselves is no fun, so we blame others.

Betrayed in love, we vow to never let another in too close again. When bilked out of money or material assets, we get stingy, paranoid and unavailable. At that level of absorption in our self preservation there's no distinction between friend and foe, right from wrong - everyone's a risk. Like living in a fear fortress, we shut down emotionally to offset our feelings of vulnerability. Apathy, is born.

I recommend trusting as much as you're willing to lose, should the person default on your trust loan. Sounds great, but it's hard to live by. For one, I can't live up to it, having let others down too. Then there's the obvious: what about those who deserve our trust? This rule is too prejudicial and exclusive.

Ultimately, for better or worse, unconditional trust is the ideal. It's great for your heart, but risky, too. Which reminds me...

Friendship — Or Pirate Ship?

For years I worked with a Toronto artist to whom I extended my trust and friendship. Whenever he felt the sting of his poverty he behaved like a drowning man clutching at anything that floats. Ultimately, he tried to pull me under and I had to swim away from the wreckage. Through him I learned some hard but invaluable lessons.

In the early 1990's I recorded my original songs to floppy disks on my Korg 01/W FD, a very expensive electronic synthesizer. Today, as work on my album progresses, there remains only a stack of floppy disks full of songs, irretrievable and useless without that keyboard, last seen in the hands of this artist friend whom I entrusted with its care.

Is the artist to blame for his absent conscience, or were my own negligence and misguided expectations also part of the equation? Most would finger the artist formerly known as "friend" as the culprit, but there are two sides to every coin.

One factor was my indifference. I was constantly writing and also promoting the artist's work, so my attention wasn't on my music or my keyboard. Though costing $3000 new, it's economic value never factored into my lending it — I just never expected to lose it to a friend. What difference does it make how much it's worth if it's returned, right?

What started as "I need it for a month" turned into years. Aside from those diskettes, regret is all I have to show for my generosity.

The artist, during his drowning man period, claims to have sold my keyboard to a pawn shop. The irony is that I lent the synth to him with the full knowledge that he'd done this to me before with my 12 string acoustic guitar. That's twice! It's my fault...

Through those disks, his legacy lives on.

Pigs Of A Feather Trough Together

Integrity is something even we "starving artists" can afford. Without it we are lost. But I haven't always known the meaning of that word.

In years past, I also feasted swine-like at the trough of others's misplaced trust. Surely my name is still on the short list of shitheads of some people. Yes, I also have some regrets about my own indiscretions I cannot reverse, though if I could, I would.

Two forces battle within us at all times — love and fear, what religion calls "good and evil". Subsequently, I've walked the moral staircase in both directions, depending on which shoes I wore. I've felt the warmth of love and compassion, and the cold, emotional exile of fear and anger. I've cheated, stolen, I've used and abused, all while in the selfish throes of my own emotional turmoil. In short, I've been a real pig at times, too.

Yet, during that time, I was also an angel to some. For the first 30 years of my life I was definitely a walking contradiction. But unaware of it being a problem, either to myself or anyone else. I felt incomplete, but I thought that's how everyone felt.

My own experience with redemption has me somewhat more forgiving than had I not taken this road. I know that all of us have skeletons in our closets, most worse than those we condemn others for. We can all be hypocrites from time to time: acting like the very people we accuse of wrongdoing. But can we see that in ourselves?

As for my evil twin, Roland The Terrible, "that was then" and I'm better now. I'm on the highest road ever, travelling faster than ever before, and I'm loving the great scenery. That guy on the lower road — that was me before my front end alignment and oil change.

You Mean It's All My Fault?

Convinced of an afterlife and "unseen intelligent forces" guiding our universe, I've adopted the theory of reincarnation to round out my existing cosmology. In a nutshell: we deserve each other, faults and all. There's something called "karma" involved, that universal law of "cause and effect" which even scientists can't turn a double blind eye to. Karma evens the human score.

Physical Karma, like stealing an ion from an atom, creates physical evidence: the atom becomes "negative" and goes in search of someone else's ion to achieve "balance" again — the justice of physics.

Karmic justice extends to all things energy-based, including our thoughts and actions. The behaviour we choose also creates an effect, not only upon others, but also upon ourselves as well. We bully a kid, the kid may bully someone else to balance his feelings of vulnerability; his victim might bring a gun to school — and blow your head off to help pay off his growing emotional debt! Purposeful violence is like a perpetual chain letter of emotional karma that continually circulates. Incest, rape, murder — all byproducts of emotional hand-me-downs!

The notion of karma is responsible for many cliche's: "What comes around, goes around"; "Reap what you sew"; "Party, party, party, till the cows come home!" (Wait, that last one looks a little suspicious...)

Karma is why my own transgressions didn't go unnoticed. Fortunately, it appears my karma is "instant" so turn-arounds between transgression and punishment are shorter. It makes for quicker learning, fewer lineups, and I get air miles. Perhaps the concept of "hell" derives from our knowledge at some deeper level of our accountability — until all our debts are paid. "There'll be hell to pay", as they say.

Karma is also why we can expect good from doing good — even if our reward comes from sources and in forms we never expected. A good rule when giving is not to expect a return. Anything but is called "doing business" — and that's not giving.

Clean — Well Okay, "Cleaner" Hands

I've now learned that as we reach higher levels of integrity, people and circumstances also change with us. As if to reward, our outer landscape matches our evolving inner one. Old unconquered weaknesses may still exist to challenge us, yet life noticeably improves once our need for karmic spankings diminishes.

For me it's meant enjoying the company of people more deserving of my trust than those who came before. Hence, trusting is easier because the odds are improving. That doesn't mean life is all sunshine and blue skies — but it's definitely not the fog patch it was before.

So, for you, dear reader, enjoy today's ascent toward a better you, tomorrow. Learn from your lessons in life, but don't stop trusting for it will all balance out in the end. From pigs in the trough to butterflies on the wing, we'll all arrive at peace, one day, but in our own time. So keep climbing that staircase, higher and higher!

To close my 37th newsletter, I recall a fundamental debate that artist and I had which we could never reconcile. He felt "the means" was unimportant so long as "the end" objective was met. I always disagreed. I believe the "how" aspect significantly shapes the end. After all, can one fully arrive at success while heartbreak, anger, and the smell of death lingers in the air? What is the taste of honey through an embittered tongue? How sweet is a song played through a stolen instrument?

The wisdom of sages tells us that it's the journey, not the destination that matters. There are many streets that all lead to the same city. I don't know if this is the end he had in mind.

Karmicly yours, eternally,
Roland Kriewaldt


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