DESIRE VS. DESERVING

Yesterday, a television report got me to thinking about deserving. A mother was wailing about how her daughter had been shot and killed by police, saying that her daughter did not deserve to die. As more and more relatives, activists and members of the community were interviewed, they all seemed to echo the mother’s sentiment. None of them mentioned that the woman who was killed was threatening her own four year-old daughter, police and herself with a box cutter, which she managed to slash at several of them before being gunned down.

This incident, rife with controversy, got me thinking about who really deserves what. I play tennis all the time and when I manage to win I am constantly asking myself if I deserved to win. Record-setting lottery winners all seem to be living in trailers and unemployed, so they are viewed as deserving winners. Why? And where is the line between deserving and desire?

Did the box cutter-wielding woman desire the outcome she was met with? If not, what did she deserve? The more I think about the word, the more ambiguous it becomes. It’s like using the “f” word; fair. Fairness has no tangible measure, much like deserving, which is what lead me to think of desire.

If I desire to win more than my opponent, is that what ultimately makes me win? Does this all somehow link back to my hated book/concept/cult of the moment, The Secret? How can I test my theories? I intend on further investigating.