As part of a project I recently joined, I got an Apple Watch. For the last month I’ve been playing with it a lot, paired it with with my iPhone, used it as a running tracking device, and so on.
The other day I noticed something funny. Every time I get an alert, both my iPhone and my Watch are triggered, which is obviously normal, because they’ve been previously linked. But when this happens when I’m walking, and my phone is in my pocket, it gets weird. The watch vibrates, but so does the iPhone in my pocket, so when I dismiss the alert on the watch, it also goes away on my phone. Both are stopping vibrating at the same time.
And here’s the weirdness. I find it predictable for the watch to stop vibrating as a result of a direct interaction. Even more, I kinda expect this to happen: when I touch the “Dismiss” button, I want the watch to stop vibrating. But, seemingly unrelated, at the same gesture, the phone stops vibrating too. All this is very new, so I didn’t have time to get accustomed to it. So, weirdly, it makes me think there’s something going on with my phone.
Because there is no obvious, visible connection between my finger and the phone (and because all this is new, and didn’t have time to internalize the idea) it looks like somebody else stopped the phone. Or like the phone stopped all by its own. Like it has its own decision making mechanisms.
It’s this apparent disconnection that puzzles me.
I know it happened because I initially paired both devices and because that’s how it’s wired to work. I planted the cause. But because I didn’t have time to internalize it, it looks and feels strange. I reckon I’ll feel the same strangeness if I would just forget I paired the devices.
And here’s where this gets to Karma (I know you’ve been waiting for this, right?).
All things have a cause. Nothing happens outside a cause. “Happening” in itself is just effect after effect after effect, all rising from previous causes.
But because we are limited, we don’ always see the causes. Especially when we don’t like what’s happening. We planted the cause of everything, we paired all the devices in our lives and everything that happens, happens because of this.
Every time we do something, there’s this cloud of events manifesting around us, apparently at once, without any visible connection between them. But just because we don’t see that connection, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Even more, just because we don’t see it, it doesn’t matter we didn’t plant it.
We are the source of our own misfortune, just like we are the cause of all the good luck and joy.
Worth thinking about this a few minutes.
Every day, if possible.
