Karma Chameleon

While I don't profess to be an authority on Buddhism or its teachings, I still have a few thoughts on the topic. Not a day goes by when I don't see someone professing on Facebook or on TV that if something bad has happened to someone through the intentional or unintentional actions of someone else that "karma's gonna get them." Or better yet "karma is a bitch." Well I have to disagree. In the basic principals of Karma, intent is the key as to whether or not this perceived wrongdoer will succumb to the same ill fate they have caused for the victim. According to Buddha.net  

'Generally speaking, all good and bad action constitutes Karma. In its ultimate sense Karma means all moral and immoral volition. Involuntary, unintentional or unconscious actions, though technically deeds, do not constitute Karma, because volition, the most important factor in determining Karma, is absent.'

So, to  anyone that believes that the person their partner cheated on them with will fall prey to karmic retribution. They probably won't. You should just get on with your life and feel relief that the person who hurt you is someone else's problem now. 

The basic principals of Karma are simple- you reap what you sow. If you do good things, no doubt good things will happen to you. It may take awhile, but relax and continue to live your life well and you will reap the rewards of being a good person. If you waste energy on negative thought and wishing someone else ill will because they have done something to you, then you are not living your life well. You are living it in the past with a vengeful mind. If you keep perpetuating the negative, no positive will come your way. Simple.

I believe that karma neither rewards nor punishes it just exists to keep you on the path you are on. Karma is not a threat, it is as a promise. Live well and think of others and the same will be done to you. Live poorly and be nasty to others the same will be done to you. Karma is not something to be thrown in someone Else's face, as you have no control over someone else's karma.  

The next time someone is bad to you try forgiving them and moving on. Karma's gonna get you.

Do you know what your shirt says part 2

Rock and...Dest? Of course.

Now is this people who love films or the people who play lovers IN films? This t-shirt makes you think.

Probably not.

Do you know what your shirt says?

Always sound town of record red zone OK! Well....OK?

The resounding response is "yes." But they don't know. Hell, most of the time I don't know because it's nonsense and that's what makes it great. I've decided that the international community (all 10 of you who read this) should get to enjoy too.

This guy is not impressed if you ogle his footwear. 

I'm lookin' cool in the whip. You dudes lookin' Jell-O. Obvs. 

To make you feel my love

Sri Lanka is a beast. It is a gorgeous, reckless semi truck crashing into my chest everyday. Sometimes it hits so hard that I think I can't breathe, but I blame the exhaust fumes, suck air through my o-shaped mouth and focus on something else. To focus on what it actually is, this force that is forcing me to relent to this bone-crushing weapon of mass emotion would be too much, because it's too many things.

I get asked daily "do you miss home?" My answer is always the same "no." Because to allow myself to feel that would be taking up space where I could feel something else. Of course I miss home, I miss him and I know that intellectually. But I can't feel it. I can't feel anything. I won't.

I've seen the most incredible people doing the most amazing things. And we overuse that word. Seriously amazing things that probably don't seem amazing because you've not lived without it long enough to miss it. Building and laughing and touching hands and hair and creating choruses of laughter. They guide and create and they use themselves all up and then find more stuff to use up from somewhere else. A somewhere else I don't have anymore. "Do you cry when these people leave?" Of course the answer is the same- "no." I can't. I can't feel it. I won't.

When my plane touches down, when I am in the taxi on my way home...maybe then, maybe I'll let myself feel it then. When I'm surrounded by people who know me and love me...maybe then. But not now. Because once I start feeling I won't be able to stop and then there will be tears of happiness and of sorrow and for everyone who has left and for everyone who is coming and for everyone I will leave here. And I won't want to leave here.

I can't seem to think straight. The twine of the net around my chest strains and frays from the pressure and I'm dying for a release. Always just one second away, but I can't let that happen. I won't.  Because this isn't about me. It's bigger than that. Bigger than I ever could have known and maybe if I'd known I'd have been too scared to come. But I'm here and it's so beautiful. Even shutting it out is beautiful. This dull persistent aching is the sole reminder that I'm still human, I haven't lost the ability to feel, I've just put it on hold.

So please don't be offended that when we speak I cut it short, or that my smile is hesitant and all at once fixed to my face like a hook in the wall. Try not to think it odd that I stare at your jumper and not into your eyes. I'm just holding it together and making sure that everything is great and please know that everything is great, it's just a different kind of great than I'm used to.

Bitch, please.

It's been awhile since I tapped into the real world and had a look at what was happening outside of Sri Lanka. Terrorist activity, government shutdowns, Kimyae stepped out post baby, but all of this news was overshadowed by the most important issue in the world right now...Britney Spears' new video.

Now I know that I should have known from the catchy title: "Work Bitch", that I wouldn't enjoy the song. And I don't. But the naive part of me expected the video to be about strong, powerful women excelling at their professions. I wanted to see mothers, farmers, CEOs and a damn female president in this video getting shit done. I should have known better to expect any kind of feminist statement from someone who once declared herself "not a girl and not yet a woman."

Now I have no beef with Britney as an artist usually. I've even paid good money to watch her lip-sync her greatest hits, but the images in tis most recent video skipped past sexy and landed in "ring the alarm" territory for my feminist sensibilities. In order to "get a Lamborghini and drink martinis" you gotta "work bitch." And the suggested profession in the video is that of a prostitute. A woman who is blindfolded writhes around in a glass box up lit with red light a la Roxanne.

Anyone who has been to Amsterdam knows what this image suggests. The Red-Light-District is not the place to gaze at affluent women who "party in France" as the song would suggest. It's where the most trafficked women from Eastern Europe end up after being promised things similar to Britney's lyrics. Most of them are held against their will and living in hell. But hey, Britney's advice remains the same "You gotta work bitch."

I'm sure Britney will defend her creation by claiming it empowers women, but how is it ever empowering to be called a bitch? I get it, we're reclaiming the word, it's ours to use, blah, blah, bullshit. It is a word that we should be trying to eradicate, not perpetuate as some pet name for all women. It's a nasty, negative word and we shouldn't be using it to describe each other, especially not to encourage each other. Call me a bitch, I feel vindicated in giving you a bitch-slap. Hey, you earned it.

My issues with Robin Thicke aren't to dissimilar from those I have with Britney at the moment. Why do we have to degrade women to sell records? Calling women bitches, parading them around bare-breasted or whipping them as they choke on a Dr. Dre Beats speaker system is the new normal; and all of it is gagging me on it's misogynistic stench. More so it's worrying that this is trendy. Miley Cyrus can ride butt-nekked on a wrecking ball all she likes. It's her body. But Britney whipping the already barely-there panties off a woman who is crawling on her hands and knees doesn't say empowerment to me. Yet this shit song will be a floor filler. Can you imagine a band putting out a song called "Work Dickhead" and all men flocking to the stores to buy it or knock people over to dance to it in a club to prove that they will work, because they truly are the biggest dickhead of them all? No.

Ladies. Let's cut this shit out. Don't call each other bitches, even to sell records. Going to work means a lot more to most of us than getting spanked or sold, so let's keep it real. This shit is eroding the position in society we have fought so long to achieve. And before anyone accuses me of overreacting, I'm not. I'm reacting full stop. Something many of us have stopped doing when we believe something is wrong. I am reacting to a world-famous pop star calling every other woman out there a bitch. I am reacting to her video that perpetuates the idea that women are objects. Objects to be sold, beaten and called names and if we buy this record or dance to it we are telling her that it's ok.