There are rules, man! Part 2

So, to understand this properly, we can’t think in terms of immediate consequences. It’s not like I tell a lie and the next second someone walks up to me and punches me in the face.

Instead we need to primarily look at our inner lives. My lies might or might not be revealed. But I will surely be afraid of it. This fear will make me less happy and affect my other thoughts. Even if it’s not obvious, this will in the long run affect my character and my decisions. One small lie will have a small, hardly noticeable effect. A big one will have a big effect. Depending on how I look at the lie, I may or may not feel guilty. But I will be afraid of exposure. 

On top of that, I’ve also met a couple of habitual liars, that don’t seem to know whether they are lying or telling the truth sometimes.

People may also pick up on subtle cues that I lie. They may have a gut feeling that I cannot be trusted. And if the truth comes out, it may have huge social consequences.

But there may be more subtle ways that for example lying affect us. I use lying as an example here, because most of us lie at least now and then and it’s what I have given most thought to. It’s also what is closest to me, since I don’t cheat or steal. But I do occasionally lie, even though I try not to.

What I’m talking about, is that lying might affect how truthful we are with ourselves. Because we do talk to ourselves. And what is to say that we don’t create patterns where we distort reality when we talk to ourselves, if we distort reality when we talk to others,. The concept of “lying to ourselves” is after all well established. And it must by necessity take place on an unconscious level, which means that it’s beyond our awareness and conscious control.

Now, let’s take this one step further. If you’re reading this blog, you probably believe that there is a spiritual side to reality. If there is a spiritual side to reality, there might also be real, unseen forces at play in our day to day lives. I have, for example, discovered that when I’m dishonest about something, something often happens that thwarts my plans. And if I get what I want through dishonesty, it often ends up being something that I don’t want. 

One question that arises, is whether all rules are created equal. I would say no and refer to the Bible. The pharisees are, among other things, a warning against making the whole of life about rules. Most of the time, Jesus seems to agree on the following of the rules. But he is very much opposed to the attitude that the pharisees take towards following them. And on a few noteworthy occasions, he and his disciples break them. From the context of the rule-breaking that we get from the accounts of them, it is also not at all clear that these are the most clear-cut cases where rules should be broken. In one instance, for example, the disciples don’t wash their hands before a meal, when this is what the Tora prescribes.

Thinking of this, I can only come up with one logical explanation. Namely that rules generally are there for us to follow them, but that depending on how much discernment we have, if we are being truly honest with ourselves, we are allowed some flexibility. The harder it is for us to stay on track and “do the right thing”, the stricter we need to be with our adherence to the rules. This also seems to indicate that it isn’t always on the surface obvious which rules we need to follow and which ones we can break. 

I would for example say that in general, we need to follow the laws of the country we live in. But a strict adherence to laws that we believe to be bad for one reason or another, is not called for. We might decide to follow them anyway because we don’t deem it worth the risk to break them. But I don’t believe that we have a moral obligation to follow them and if I’m right about this, this also means that reality won’t necessarily smack us in the face if we break them.

So, if this is correct, societal law cannot be neatly fitted into spiritual law. Mostly it can though, so we should be careful about breaking it. And it might not even be worth breaking laws that we deem faulty, simply because of the risk of getting caught and the stress that it causes us. As with many other things, the freedom that we can allow ourselves, from the perspective of our own and other people’s good, is in direct proportion to the development of our own moral compass, our ability to be honest with ourselves and to assess a situation. And unless we are prepared to take these questions seriously and give them some thorough, soul searching thought, it’s best to just do what everyone else are doing, unless what they are doing is clearly harmful.

There are rules, man! Part 1

The other day, I was listening to an episode of Jordan Peterson’s Biblical Series on YouTube. One thing that he said was “There are rules” and adding this stoner/hippie-like “man” that he sometimes does, which is so uncharacteristic of him.

I’ve thought of it a lot afterwards. And I think that he’s right. Basically, I think that there is an unseen reality of rules that govern the consequences of our action. I furthermore believe that it’s partially to be found in the unconscious aspects of our psychology.

This is what Peterson seems to mean: that there are rules written into the fabric of reality, or at least into our psyches. According to Peterson, you will never really get away from the consequences of these rules. They are not the same as the law, even though many are written into the law.

First I found this implausible. People lie, cheat and steal and get away with it all the time. But if you look at what lives these people live, it’s usually not very happy lives. Even if someone goes through his or her life breaking the rules in the ways I just mentioned and still become successful, there might be some real agony once death approaches. And even though I don’t believe in hell, I can’t say for sure that it does not exist. And even if there isn’t any eternal suffering awaiting anyone after death, there might be other consequences. Perhaps consequences that are more akin to a father disciplining a disobedient child.

But successful liars, cheaters and thieves are a small minority. The vast majority, at least among those that do it on a regular basis, are ridden with negative emotions. The vast majority also live in poverty or in fear of retaliation or the law. This is usually proportional to the quantity and severity of the behavior.