Karma or Kharma

Well, they say, it’s a bitch and what goes around comes around. Over the past few years, I have battled with this concept thinking that I must have played one helluva practical joke or prank on someone influential in my past life. Frankly, I just don’t think Karma exists.

And how does Karma deal with those children who are subjected to abuse and violence?

And how does Karma deal with war and the effects on innocent people?

I think Karma was a sensible dictum instructing the mass not to engage in retaliations or revenge. Because we all know what happens when Peter hits Paul, well Paul gets angry and hits Peter back … next thing you know, rockets are fired over borders and tanks are rolling across fields.

Did you know that World War One was started when someone from one country shot an important (but less liked) person from another country. Rather than settling the score right then and there, one of them secured the backing of Germany, and the other called on Russia for support, then one month later they came together for a ‘great fisticuffs with bullets’ … other countries joined in, and four years later and well over 20 million lives lost, the war ended.

Shame the knowledge of Karma wasn’t as widespread in the western world as it was amongst the Hindu’s and Buddhist’s at that time.

I guess in the end, the ability to deal with setbacks – or outright failures – is really at the heart of a successful, and happy, person.

Over time and personally, I have found that some of life’s surprises can be really tough, and some people out there can be totally intolerable … but with the help from some truly good friends, a psychologist and the right ‘brain’ pills, you can indeed be treading along a happy place.

Nighty night.

Blog Review

Dave Dixon is a 50-something who has a blog. Besides having a blog, Dixon also was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer in 2009. To combat that disease, he has undergone a procedure that is called a Radical Prostatectomy, meaning that his Prostate Gland has been surgically removed in full, and that was followed by 6 weeks of Radiotherapy. He has been diagnosed with anxiety and depression and is taking meds to battle those.

On ddixon.me, the blog Dave fills with rants, opinions and updates on his condition, stands out because of his humor. Dave writes about terrible things, things we don’t want anyone going through, and I quickly found his style a bit particular, but in a good way.

Being someone who tries to see something humorous in every situation myself, I appreciate the levity with which he often writes about his ordeal. Not because I believe that every situation has something funny in it, but because I believe that dealing with something this big with a bit of levity just makes it more bearable.

Obviously, as somebody who does not know Dave personally (I contemplated calling him Mr. Dixon in this review, but that just felt weird, having read a lot about his life), I at times felt some difficulty pinpointing whether a particular joke was a brave attempt at hiding his feelings or a genuine glance of his humorous personality.

The obvious journey when reading the blog in chronological order is that of the man who is ill, venturing down a slippery path that, in ideal conditions, leads back to his full health, with the notable exception of his Prostate Gland, that was removed years ago.

The less obvious journey, yet equally interesting to read, although I might be reading to much into it, is the journey of a man that both seems to come to terms more and more with his physical illness and the psychological fallout it causes. And a man whose writing improves visibly with every blogpost, but that’s true of nearly everyone who frequently writes.

It goes to far to summarize the blog in this interview, and I do not like spoilers. I highly recommend visiting ddixon.me, going to the very first post and then just start reading. You will find it hard to peel yourself away from the screen or to prevent yourself from skipping ahead. You want to know what happens, and you want to know now!

If there is one little flaw, it is that sometimes humor forces actual informing the readers to the backseat, but that is a logical thing and often seen in personal blogs. Those are written by and for the person blogging, as a means to vent, rant and just get things out of their head. Not to have every word dissected by some stranger on the other side of the globe.

Tim Bruls