In one of my favorite cartoon series, in the face of doing chores and having to go to school, Calvin always says to his father "This isn't fair," and his father always replies "Life isn't fair." Recently, I've seen this more than once, in my own experience and around me, and, yes, Calvin, life really isn't fair.
I had to write a lab report the night I got back from Honor Choir, and I was terribly sick. Anyway, I wrote it one way, or another, and sent it to my teacher on its due date. Next week, because of the complaints of my classmates, our teacher did not assign a lab report because some of my classmates had a similar excuse to mine.
This is just one example of the unfairness I've faced only the past week. Everyday, in my class, in my school, in Ankara, all around the world, people face unfairness, and the worst thing is that, most of the time, there is nothing they/we can do about it.
My small little lab report is very, very insignificant in the face of what unfair circumstances people face every second. Bill Gates is one of the world's richest people. Why? Yes, one of the reasons why is that he figured out a code which when entered, would allow him to use the computers in his university's lab without time limitations and so got hours and hours of practice, but one must ask, how did he go to that university? His parents were wealthy people, so he got raised in great circumstances, got a high school diploma, got to go to university. Maybe, some child of the less fortunate families in the world, could have been richer and more successful than Bill Gates. Only, he died of heart failure at age 4, because he had a damaged valve at birth and it was not discovered, let alone be treated, because of the circumstances he was born in to.
What happened to the child is simply, discernibly, unfair. Unfortunately, in our little, corrupt, capitalist world, not everyone is "born equal". As Gavroche in Les Misérables said, here's the thing about equality: everyone's equal when they're dead.
Nothing is fair. Sometimes, you just have to accept the fact that just because they're better friends with the people who choose the team, some people who otherwise probably couldn't have landed that position take part in this prestigious team. Sometimes, you just have to admit to yourself that whatever you do or say, won't make a difference. But sometimes, you have to see the sunlight piercing through the clouds and be stronger, be better, in spite of all the brooding and gloomy clouds of injustice and unfairness.
How do you define "fair"?
ReplyDeleteTo claim that life is unfair is an exercise in self-deception and an abnegation of responsibility.
Life's distribution of circumstance may seem fair or unfair, but those more often are features over which we have no little or no control. How, then, can such a distribution be considered fair or unfair?
Given those circumstances, however, their subsequent management by their inheritors can create injustice, or unfair treatment.
The occasions of life and death should not be considered fair or unfair; those descriptors should be reserved only for people in their exercise of humanity.