I made this anti-joke once when a friend was talking about the subject of his doctoral thesis, I asked him to explain it to me like I am 22. And I was genuin about that. I need to hear people’s explanation of things like I am at my age, whatever that age was. I am gonna call this feeling an “episode”. The twenties feel like the “crashing with reality”-age, you spend around 5 years before that getting smarter, more aware and knowledgeable about things, maturing step by step and learning new “facts” about life that you can throw now and then in a conversation to feel more engaged. So one learns for example the big idea of justice and the fact that “life should be fair” for everyone since “we are all the same”. I personally started building my early imagination about the world based on those revolutionary premises of humanism. Things that make complete sense and I thought, could not be proven wrong.

Till this “episode” of re-thinking things began with a sudden crashing realization of reality. And this new reality is not that the old facts are wrong, but that they are not working! The problem was not to stop thinking that life should be fair and we are all the same, but that life is actually not getting fair and people are not, again — “actually”, treated the same. Not necessarily me or in my personal life, but rather generally, when you look out to the world, to others, to the news, to any source of information concerns with the human condition, and with some fragment of critical thinking you can’t help but asking “Why isn’t life then fair if we believe it should be fair?”. That is a big question amid that episode and one is in need for an urgent answer, otherwise nothing really makes sense at least then. It kind of destroys the whole belief system that is needed for the kick off of that new period of life — the twenties. At this moment one starts seeking explanations. Because now I have these two separate facts that don’t add up and aren’t leading me anywhere. Some third one here or there should explain things more. A quest of new knowledge begins. And I think this is mainly, regardless at which age, is when people start to adopt radical ideologies. The urge for finding an answer and a meaning is what give us this feeling of value and takes the guilt off us. And the market of answers is big and diverse. The challenge is not to feel too comfortable about your finding.

To our question of fairness of life we can run into an answer that would put us at a misleading ease by cancelling our early belief right from the start. Life should not be fair at the first place. This is a very satisfactory conclusion because it is exceptionally coherent. Life is not fair because it doesn’t have to be fair, makes much sense. The injustice is due to people’s incapability, they are not working enough, they are not smart enough. Reward is there for those and only those who deserve it. Only people who can’t benefit from the working system are the ones who would complain. This is the answer we would hear in the materialistic money-oriented and the “us vs them” echo chamber. What also applies to culture and beliefs. Religious extremism becomes an attractive solution in this realm, because it provides an easy conclusion. Others are not like us, hence things should not be fair for all of us.

In case this makes some of us feel uncomfortable, there is another answer. Yes, life should be fair, but unfortunately it will never be fair. That is also a good easy one, it fixes the dilemma using the realistic card, things are just how they are and this is how they work. Right on the other side of that argument is “life should be fair and could easily be fair”. Both schools are very similar in claiming a huge amount of entitlement of understanding reality and in denying almost any deviation from those conclusion(s). For one who seeks a solution, this is very tiring, alienating and also gaslighting, because you keep running on that treadmill of extreme negativity and positivity, and neither benefiting from reality, changing reality, or even having the right to question reality. The whole ‘realistic vs idealistic’ fight paralyses the quest. Its goal is set to prove the superiority of a view over the other. This co-dependency of an argument is a sign of inauthenticity which could damage the searching process.

The answer I like to the question “ is life fair?” is “what is “fair”?” What do I mean by asking that? By defining fairness I might understand what do I or people want under this idea or feeling of unfairness. Knowing what we need or what we feel might give us a better explanation to why aren’t we feeling fulfilled, and how to get there. The answer to a dilemmatic question should be another question. A question does not claim truth. A question does not impose a single conclusion. A question does not alienate, eliminate or exclude any party. The question opens a new way and pushes the debate further. An answer is not guaranteed, but as long as there is no answer, there will be a question and a continuous conversation.