Fairness

I had a different post scheduled for today, a more optimistic one I’d written last week about moving on and letting go, but my heart really isn’t in it right now so we’re taking a bit of a detour.

Even though it’s one of my favorites, I don’t often find solace in the silliest, queerest, kindest, most earnest webcomic on the internet, El Goonish Shive. But last night I did.

I was struggling to work through some very dark emotions, feeling frustrated and angry at the unfairness of a misunderstanding that had badly hurt everyone involved and couldn’t be fixed, but which I couldn’t honestly fault anyone for either. At first I tried to tell myself “well, life isn’t fair, suck it up,” but honestly I’ve always hated that sentiment. Yes, it’s true, but saying it isn’t helpful or kind; if it were a comment on one of my posts I would delete it.

Then I suddenly remembered this:

Life isn’t fair. Life can’t be fair; it doesn’t have the brains. It’s up to us to choose to be fair to each other, even when circumstances haven’t been fair to us. The circumstances don’t care, you see. But we can.

Fairness isn’t found or given, it’s made. It’s good to remember that you can always choose to make more.

Added: there’s one important thing I couldn’t figure out how to say when I first wrote this post. Turns out I didn’t need to figure it out, it was already in the next panel of the comic: “You don’t make things ‘fair’ by hurting yourself.” That’s an important caveat. Sometimes, when another person has been unfair to you, the fairest thing you can do is call them out or walk away. Be fair to yourself, too!