Most of us, if we’re raised “right”, have a compelling need to see justice done. We are taught sowing and reaping. Action and consequence. We are taught to believe that good choices, right actions - result in good fruit, in happiness and fulfillment. We are taught that life is not fair, that entitlement is earned by good acts and that we are guaranteed nothing we don’t earn. “Deserve” is a dirty word in our world.

Most of us, once we’ve lived a little bit of life, learn that justice is hard to find. My upbringing taught me that justice should be pursued to almost any length. An eye for an eye. A life for a life. As I have evolved through the wilderness of living, I have watched the jungle of humanity measure out its own form of justice. The strong prey upon the weak. The loud voices drown out the gentle reason. I have watched the strongest and most health-conscious people I know die from unrelenting and unprovoked illnesses. I have watched the kindest people I know carry unmeasurable pain cast upon them without cause or justification. I have rarely seen true justice served, in this very real life.

Justice, I am learning, much like fairness, entitlement, and privilege -are all human contrivances, developed over eons of suffering to try to make sense of things, to rationalize actions, to survive existence, but none of these constructs exist in the primal world. There is no justice in the African Savannah among the beasts, or the dark forests of the frigid north. Sowing and reaping is a concept construed out of the development of a modern, agrarian-based survival. It has no basis in the wild and natural world of animals. It exists only where humans choose to be more than animals. To curb their instincts. To suppress their desires… if a place like that in time or space exists at all.

I am rethinking my preoccupation with justice, much as I did long ago my hope for fairness or desire for privilege. Not to say that I am not privileged. Every breath I am given is a privilege. Every sunset I observe in comfort is more than fair when I think of how many are deprived the comfort I enjoy. And all of my good choices must be performed for the sake of their own goodness and the comfort they provide others, and not for the assurance of any just deserts.

Justice is a rare thing and perhaps, for people like me, a false idol. Something we cling to, hoping our good behavior will spare us from pain. It’s a dying gasp for control in a world full of other human animals, the messiest of all species, who will not be controlled, no matter how pious or righteously we behave.

Justice, says god, belongs to him. And maybe that’s the only place it lives. We see little true justice in our legal systems, in our judicial systems… we see only humans striving for the control over one another that will never be. We will not be spared the suffering of illness or the harm of choices our loved ones make. We will not be granted reprieve from the onslaught of a culture that legislates wealth over health, and prizes financial gain over our tribal need to care for one another as members of the same species.

So, if justice cannot be won, and the reaping of good fruits can never be assured, as centuries of farming, famine and wars have taught us, where do we fight our fights? I struggle through this to understand my own misplaced efforts. I see, and I battle with my own soul, that my actions towards others must be for the sake of what good I can bring to them and not clinging to the belief that my suffering will be offset by my good deeds. I have seen too many good people suffer. I have seen too many terrible people profit. I do not believe justice exists in this world, but I believe kindness does. And it is modeled in the behaviors of the wildest species we observe. Animals operate on instinct. They kill to survive and to protect the survival of their offspring. They shelter others of their kind and safeguard the weak if it does not jeopardize the rest of the tribe. We operate on superficial merit. We sacrifice our offspring for our own validation, and we weaken ourselves to become acceptable to those stronger than us.

I can see how my longing for justice has done nothing but create hardship for the ones I love. How it has cost more than it will ever gain me, and how it is a dying gasp for control. My actions must be predicated on what is right for the ones in my tribe that I am put here to protect, and nothing more. I will be dealt pain, as everyone is, and should expect nothing less in a world full of predators, but I will also experience the joy of each sunset, safe with the ones I love.

I want to learn how to let go of the fallacy of justice and accept that only god, or fate, or whatever force exists out there, dictates the pain and joy we experience. I want to undo my expectations of reaping what I have sown and expect the enemies that prowl at my gates, waiting for the weak to wander by. I can only be strong to protect those I am here to love. I can only be smart and wary of those who would destroy the ones I am given. Justice means nothing in a jungle like this.