George Saunders

And many of the side effects, you never know about them, you know.

So that's, yeah, that's a beautiful thing.

Do you have any sense of how you're doing karmically?

No, I mean, no, that's exactly it.

I think when people use it in a kind of groovy way, they say, oh man, that guy got the promotion over me.

Karma's gonna bite him in the ass.

That's bullshit because karma means whatever I want to happen will happen because God likes me.

What about you?

I mean, are you a karma person?

But I wonder if, and I'm just spitballing, but I wonder if the punishment isn't really dependent on one being aware.

So for example, let's say that I went around with these headphones in my ears really jammed in there and I couldn't hear anything.

I love them.

They feel great.

And then I get out on the street and there's, for some reason, there's a string quartet.

I wander by it.

I don't hear it because of my obsession with these headphones.

Okay, am I punished?

Not really.

I mean, I don't know that I'm punished.

I'm not overtly punished, but somehow there's a difference in that experience versus the one with the headphones out, maybe.