A few weeks ago our spiritual support circle was contemplating the principle of fairness in life. The principle states that life is always fair even though we might not like what we get. To me, this seemed obvious so there was little to contemplate, but the discussion from the others in the group demonstrated widely different views. The difference has been rolling around in the back of my mind since that meeting as I try to pin down why there were such differences in perspective.

One step I start with when something strikes me this way is to check out the actual definition of the keywords. The simplest and first definition of fair is "without bias". This fit well with how I was seeing fairness in the world. But as I look at the examples I use to demonstrate fairness I see a pattern. I used the example of gravity. Gravity is applied without bias to all things. The sun shines equally on all without bias. The laws of creation apply to all people without bias. All the fundamental forces and relationships I consider to exemplify life are applied equally to all. Here is where I differed radically from most of the rest of the group. I consider life to mean "the big world" in which we are all immersed. Most of their responses were looking at life as the personal relationships they have with specific people.

For some reason, I never thought of life in this way. I see my experience of life and the people in my life as different from life itself. People are inherently unfair, meaning highly biased. This is an unavoidable reality of being human. Simple things like preferring to feel well versus being in pain is a profound bias. We live in a tiny perceptual box built out of our familiar perceptions. Our "comfort zone" is just another name for our bias. We prefer participation with the familiar rather than the unknown. The reality is we are constantly immersed in the unknown up to our eyeballs. Rather than embrace this truth, we project our comfortable ways of seeing things onto reality and pretend everything is either our way or at least it should be. This denies the truth of the difference in everyone around us and makes us inherently unfair. All humans are profoundly biased in this way.

Perhaps I assumed the truth of the principle and restricted my thoughts about life to those broad universal realities that apply to everyone at all times. Yes, I know that this is a type of confirmation bias. I am only paying attention to the aspects of life that conform to the stated principle. Humorously, I am biased in how I see life as always fair. So I am not being fair about fairness! This is the great value in having a group of people you get together with to discuss life, the universe, and everything – you get to see the narrowness of your own thinking.

I remember the word fair coming up a lot when I was raising my kids. There was a period of time when the phrase "but that's not fair" was always popping up. This phase did not last too long because I always had the same response, "What you mean to say is that you don't like it." They were trying to appeal to some imaginary cosmic law that decreed they should get what they wanted simply because someone else got something good. I run into this so often that I am beginning to think that this is some pre-programmed stage of maturation like the magical thinking stage. Somehow parents/society should supply equal goodness to everyone. Furthermore, this goodness should arrive gift-wrapped without regard for any participation on the part of the recipient. The universe does do this for everyone in the form of the universal laws that govern reality, but people don't do this.

Let's try a silly example of why this can't work. Suppose some worldwide governmental head decided that everyone should receive the goodness of a size 6 pair of blue sneakers. That is completely fair, equal, and without bias. Everyone gets the exact same thing. But how many people can wear a size 6 pair of sneakers? How many people would want to wear a size 6 pair of sneakers? What if you can but you really want hot pink sneakers? How are you going to make this sneaker handout work? Notice how something that is completely fair by definition does not meet my kid's definition in which fair is getting what you want? My kids gave up on that tactic while still in middle school, but I hear it word for word coming from boatloads of supposed adults.

We could keep demonstrating the inherent difficulties in achieving this mythical state of fairness, but let's jump into the deep water. What people really mean most of the time when they say something is not fair, is that some other people are not the way they want. They want goodness from everyone and not everyone is willing to give them goodness. I believe this is the biggest gripe people who claim "life is unfair" are really feeling inside whether they admit it to themselves or not. We want to be treated kindly and with respect by all we meet, but this does not generally happen. We also want to feel safe and abundant in our life. Living life scared and in a state of lack all the time is really stressful. Worst of all, living life in fear all the time makes us act the opposite of how we want people to treat us. Consequently, we get treated poorly since that is how we are acting as well.

This is where the ultimate fairness offered to us by the universe shows up. We are all given the power to treat others in a loving manner – no matter what our life condition is. When we exercise this power we slowly change our experience of life and begin to get the very things we believed we were in lack of. This is a slow transition for us as well as those we choose to act kindly and respectfully with. Our fear fades slowly as does theirs, so the quality of interaction heals slowly. Some people are so frozen in fear that they will never be able to return your goodwill, while others will warm up very slowly. This is the ultimate fairness in my eyes. We have the capacity to make a better choice in what we put out to the world. Fairness lives in the opportunities life gives us to be different, to be better.

Asking for a world in which everyone has zero bias is fool's gold. Of course you have bias, and of course you are unfair. Do you expect to treat your own kids or mate no better and no worse than a complete stranger? That is what zero bias and true fairness would demand. The idea of treating everyone the same is absurd. Every relationship we have with everything is built on distinct bias-creating experiences. We like this or we dislike that is what makes a relationship. True fairness turns all of life into vanilla pudding. Relationship formation is created through discrimination. I know discrimination is one of those "bad" words, but without discrimination, you could not tell good food from rotten food. Likewise, you could not tell good friends from rotten friends. We don't actually want everything to be equal and without bias. We love our biases. Just look at all the different kinds of cars and houses there are. Do we really want a world where we all have the same car, house, job, and life? I think not.

So is life fair? Certain universal realities apply to each and every one of us. The universe treats us all fairly. If you step in front of a speeding bus you will get smacked no matter who you are. Does life give you whatever you want just because you want it? I have not seen that definition of fair work out in the world, so no on that one. Are people fair? Nope, nor should they be. We are creatures whose very definition of ourselves is built out of our biases. Could we treat others more kindly and respectfully – absolutely! Does that have anything to do with fairness? It has to do with how we create the types of relationships that we will feel are mutual and reciprocal, the kind we feel are fair. This is probably the key to the desire for fairness. Fairness is not really the right concept. What we are really after is relationships built on mutual respect and reciprocity. Granted that if my neighbor gets a new Porsche then I think I should get one also. But I would be okay with positive, reciprocal relationships.

Take care,

David

         
Ellen update:    

We had a real treat this week, my brother Daniel came down from Portland for a visit to see us and mom.  We took them out to our favorite Persian restaurant for lunch while catching up on family news.  It has been a long time sine we have connected since everything has been locked down the last couple years.