give and you shall recieve
March 4th, 2007 by smidge
Cosmology of Waste Part III: GIVE AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE
There is a sort of karma at work when it comes to finding treasures on the job. If you are too eager in expecting to find something good, you almost surely will not. The Wastemakers will see to it that your jinx is enforced. But if you give much to the Wastestream and are not too covetous with the things you pluck from it, you will be rewarded with treasures aplenty. Furthermore, if you give something away to a fellow Hauler, that Hauler – as a fellow devotee of the Wastemakers – will surely give back to you when given the chance. Thusly does the Wastestream keep its delicate balance.
When there is a dispute, and two or more Haulers want to keep the same thing, what we usually do is search for what we officially and unimaginatively call a “compelling reason”. Almost always there will be some detail about one person’s situation that makes it make more sense for them to have whatever it is they’re fighting over. And if open, honest discussion fails to tease out any compelling reason, our officially sanctioned final dispute settler is always Rochambeau, better known here in Anytown as Rock-Paper-Scissors. And always in its pure form: best two out of three lightning rounds.
Smidge, does the fact that “treasures” are free to haulers change karma? In other words, does the karmic structure of the Waste-o-Sphere differ from other functional rules of the universe? (In most situations I can think of, you only find great things when not looking for them.)
I’d think since everything is free, compelling reasons would be more difficult to identify.
I suppose it’s not that different from ordinary ‘karma’. There is something more socialist about it, though, in that what a person ‘paid’ for something is less of a factor in determining who should own it.