We are always told that we must follow certain moral precepts if you want to lead an honorable and successful life: but is that true? I believe that it is. However there are two divergent, distinct paths that lead to evil and immorality, the one consciously committed and the other one of ignorance: the sins of commission and omission.
The other day, I had a personal experience that buttresses my stance. I was driving my scooter and was stopped by a traffic light. I am always very curious at the sights and sounds of Taichung, so I take every opportunity to study my environment. Next to me on my right a “Keystone Cops” (1) situation was unfolding. Three uniformed men were unloading sacks of money from a rather dilapidated looking van and dutifully carrying the contents into a bank. Two men, like “slaves of old,” had hoisted sacks upon their backs and were proceeding into the financial institution. The third guard, holding a rather oversized taser, (2) was standing a considerable distance away from the lucre, staring in the opposite direction; away from the vehicle. The devil jumped on my shoulder: “Leon, make a run for it: you will never get caught, just one bag!” I was rather stunned by this emotion, but there it was. Why didn’t I act? Several reasons really: these include incarceration, societal opprobrium etc. The greatest control, however, came from my moral center. I know, intrinsically, that stealing is ethically inconsistent with a worthy citizen of the world, let alone of Taiwan.
Now there are opportunistic people who would not do the same, I am sure. What will happen to them? I believe that life, though fickle, is ultimately just. One only has to read the biographies on many famous gangsters to see that ill-gotten gains are not redeeming when attempting a life well-lived. The one individual I take note of is Meyer Lansky, the so-called accountant of the mafia. “His most renowned biographer, Robert Lacey, describes Lansky’s financially difficult circumstances in the last two decades of his life and his inability to even pay for the health care of his handicapped son, who eventually died in poverty (Remember: America has no national healthcare system). For Lacey, there was no evidence ‘to sustain the notion of Lansky as king of all evil, the brains, the secret mover, the inspirer and controller of American organized crime.’ … When asked in his later years what went wrong in Cuba, the gangster offered no excuses … Lansky told people he had lost almost every penny in Cuba and that he was barely scraping by.” Whatever happened to his pilfered sums, his finally years were filled with pain and anguish. (3) He did not die a good death. To quote William Shakespeare: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste their death but once.”
There are other states of unethical behavior. These are focused more on the blatant indolence of the individual. Why when you only a limited amount of time in this existence would you throw it away in idleness? Vincent van Gogh had a particular take on “loafers.” In a letter to his brother Theo dated June 1880, van Gogh writes: “There’s the one who’s an idler through laziness and weakness of character, through the baseness of his nature; you may, if you think fit, take me for such a one. Then there’s the other idler, the idler truly despite himself, who is gnawed inwardly by a great desire for action, who does nothing because he finds it impossible to do anything since he’s imprisoned in something, so to speak, because he doesn’t have what he would need to be productive, because the inevitability of circumstances is reducing him to this point. Such a person doesn’t always know himself what he could do, but he feels by instinct, I’m good for something, even so! I feel I have a raison d’être! I know that I could be a quite different man!” This thus is our call to action. A dynamic life is before us, but only through work and effort will we be successful to “our” standard of life. Existence does not reward shirkers. The great Bengali poet and novelist Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) leaves us with a thought: I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.
A small joke: A man and his wife were hurriedly on their way to the airport for their vacation. They chanced upon a dentist’s office. “Doctor, “the man said, “forget the anesthetic. Just pull the tooth!” My gosh,” the dentist replied. “You are very brave.” “I know,” the man acknowledged, “my wife has tremendous personal courage!”
This week, please reflect on the power of work and how we can share our value with others.
Every day look for something magical and beautiful.
Quote: Inner strength gives us the power to overcome pain and adversity. It, however, can only be constructed through deep contemplation and outward effort.
Footnotes
2) A Taser is an “electroshock” weapon. It fires two small dart-like electrodes, which stay connected to the main unit by conductors and deliver an electric current to the body: this causes loss of muscle control, and physical collapse