Karmic retribution and sugar in the tea

A very minor incident has provided the material for an article about how the punishment sometimes fits the crime.

I visited some people a few days ago and was offered tea. When asked if I wanted any sugar in it, for some strange reason I said I would have a small spoonful. I don’t know what came over me to make me say that: I never ever take sugar with tea as I think it ruins the taste. I drank it without much enjoyment.

When something unpleasant happens, I have learned to work backwards to find the cause. There is almost always some connection between the incident and one of the items on my checklist. For example, it could be that I had been in the company of an energy vampire or had a horrible jarring shock.

It is worth making similar checks if I make a mistake or act out of character, even in very minor matters. In all cases, one possibility to consider is that I am getting back what I sent out and the chickens are coming home to roost.

By coincidence, two days earlier someone had visited me and asked for a little sugar in his tea. We were talking a lot about databases and work and I forgot to put any in; he didn’t say anything and I only realised my mistake a few hours after he had gone!

It may be a relevant factor that my resistance is very low at the moment. Not only does a tiny task seem like a huge project and a small setback like a big disaster, but a minor mistake also seems like a major crime and I feel guilty as hell. When I suddenly remembered that he had asked for sugar, my automatic reaction was, “Oh no, how awful of me to forget!”

Even in the case of very trivial incidents, it is always worth trying to find a possible cause.

Perhaps I transmitted some signal and it was picked up and interpreted as a desire to be punished for my crime! In other words, it was my reaction to what I did - or rather forgot to do - and not the crime itself that triggered the fitting punishment.

Connecting cause and effect is one thing; trying to understand the mechanics behind it all is something else.

Playing the fairy godmother game again

A recent minor incident in my life has provided some material for a small addition to a previous article.

Someone I did some work for many years ago got in touch out of the blue because he had a database-related assignment and wanted me for the job. I told him that although I no longer do that sort of work, I would mention the assignment to a colleague with the relevant background and experience.

This colleague had left his job a while back to set up a very different kind of business of his own, but he told me that if some suitable short-term freelance work came along he might be interested. He said that he wanted to keep his hand in and stay in touch with the sector, and the money would be useful too.

I put them in touch with each other, and they have come to an arrangement. They get on very well too. My friend has had some bad experiences with incompetent and unpleasant management in the past, which is why he left to work for himself. He is very happy with the people he will be working for, and says that it was obviously my recommendation that got him the work.

So I gave both sides something that they had been wishing for. They got it on a plate.

This is no big deal; finding suitable people and work via informal networks happens all the time. There are a few features that make it worth mentioning on here though. 

Some of the people in my family poisoned everything they touched. They brought misfortunes and bad luck to many of the people around them too. It is still a great relief when something happens to show that I have not only broken the evil spell but reversed it and am in general an influence for good.

After visiting the office, my colleague told me that even if he was not offered the work, he would still have met new people in the sector and had interview practice. He would be happy to just have that. This is another example of someone who attracted more by expressing gratitude and appreciation for what he already had. Not only that, but I like to feel that I am moving in what I see as the right circles i.e. with positive people.

The other point of interest is that I had been wishing and wishing that I could find a suitable project for someone else. He has been having a bad time, and a good assignment would solve many problems. So maybe the good wishes went slightly astray and affected a different person.  In the past, I have only ever seen this happen with what might be called cursing or ill-wishing.

So my first big wish for 2018 is that something good will come along for this other man.

Benjamin Disraeli, John Tenniel and Lewis Carroll

Several aspects of Benjamin Disraeli and his life have been described in previous articles.  This one will cover some of the artworks and fictional characters he inspired in two other eminent Victorians.

Disraeli was god’s gift to cartoonists. The famous illustrator John Tenniel depicted him many times in the satirical magazine Punch. I like this one of him dressed as an angel for a fancy dress ball:

Disraeli was also the inspiration for some of Tenniel’s illustrations that Lewis Carroll commissioned for the Alice books.

The Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland resembles Tenniel’s caricatures of Disraeli:

Tenniel also put Disraeli into one of his illustrations for Alice Through the Looking Glass; the man in the white paper suit in the railway carriage is Dizzy:

Lewis Carroll himself made a reference to Disraeli - and his Reform Bill - with his character Bill the Lizard, whose name is a play on Disraeli’s name:

Carroll also based his Lion and Unicorn characters on Disraeli and his rival and enemy William Gladstone, the other man in the cartoon above. They fight each other for the crown, just as Gladstone and Disraeli fought for power in Parliament. Gladstone was seen as the Lion and Disraeli as the Unicorn.

Here they are in one of Tenniel’s original illustrations:

The Bill and the White Paper were just political in-jokes, but the pyramid, the lizard, the goat and the beetle sitting next to the goat in the railway carriage make me think of Egypt and David Icke’s references to lizard people.

Then there is the Lion and the Unicorn connection. Lions and unicorns are associated with Leo and Aquarius.

I wonder if Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel were giving us some messages, consciously or unconsciously.

Tenniel’s depiction of Disraeli as the Sphinx: