entropy, the Gita and milkbones

apparently this week is the week that my friends have decided to start falling apart en masse. the various maladies run the gamut from heartbroken-ness to accidental and self-inflicted hospitalizations, and it seems much of my time since Friday afternoon has been spent as something of a lay crisis counselor. but this is beside the point.

the point is that it feels good to lend whatever assistance i might be providing, and i was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about how every good act is its own reward, that it makes no difference whether one sees results today, or next month, or twenty lifetimes from now.

it took me a long time to really understand this (i'm understanding it still), and some of my favorite parts of the Bhagavad Gita are the ones that talk about the nature of karma. our "bad" acts yield "bad" results, and our "good" acts yield "good" results, but the highest aim is to renounce the results altogether, to know that we are not the one doing the deed but merely a vessel. Krishna tells Arjuna that even the lesser gods are bound by their karmas, and it only humans who have the ability to truly be free.

i think of this often, especially when it feels like i'm doing something "good" for somebody. i remind myself that, so long as i believe i am the one doing it, the best of all possible outcomes is another round of birth, another round of death, another round of collapsing the divine into small words i think i understand...

oh yes, one more thing: