Warning Labels and Consequences: What if Adam and Eve Ate a Silica Gel Packet?
So, one overhears a lot of things in New York. Maybe the owners of an unfamiliar bodega look at your outfit and start a mumbled debate about just how much they can get away with charging you for a bottle of water. Little do they know that you speak fluent spanish, and are also all too familiar with one of them complaining about his daughter’s boyfriend. Or, maybe, instead of blessing you with a thin waist, someone blessed you with paper-thin walls. Who could possibly waste money paying to watch reality TV when you get exclusive access to everything there is to know about your neighbour’s sex lives? 3F seriously needs to tone it down- what married couple is capable of being THAT loud at 3 PM on Sunday - and the folks of 3J need to stop leaving the sour cream out and get a new couples’ therapist, because this one clearly isn’t getting it right. It doesn’t end outside of the home, either. A 30-minute ride on a train downtown will let you experience gems such as “His profile says he’s a fan of the Oxford comma. I’m gonna wear my pretty panties,” or “Having a podcast is this generation’s equivalent of having a lower-back tattoo.”
Fascinating stuff, I tell you.
My favourite form of accidental-eavesdropping, however, may be that which occurs when one is next to exhausted parental units. “Tom, we really gotta adjust Elizabeth’s nap schedule to suit my Soul Cycle classes - trust me, my butt is going to start showing it.” “I swear to god, I’d make her go vegan just for the summer so we can avoid the goddamn ice cream truck.” “Yes, I know that your sister’s hamster has been napping for a really long time, but we’re not going to tell her until Mommy takes a quick field trip to Petco, okay?” I may not look it, but I could definitely let you know if the brand that made that kale-and-carrot baby food is guaranteed gluten-free. However, a few days ago, I heard something that made me feel something beyond bewilderment at anyone has the patience to deal with small children. A surprisingly-calm young woman, in an attempt to console her wailing kid, who had apparently gotten in trouble for taking someone’s action figure, took a deep breath and uttered:
“Someday, you’ll learn that there are no punishments in life. There’s only fate and consequences.”
Three days later, long after that kid has gotten out of his, what, ten-minute time out, her sentence was still spinning in my mind.
You see, long before she made a habit of spending her subway rides scribbling in notebooks and putting her mind’s wanderings out there for all the world to see, this girl had a love for words. Not in an adorable “Oh, this kid will go on to write great things someday!” manner. More so in the “Masha we’ve given it a chance for a few days, and you can’t read books while walking down the street anymore. If you get a THIRD bruise on your forehead from walking into stoplights, your teacher is going to have some questions.” I’m honestly too scared to ask exactly how my parents tolerated me. The most exciting moments to this second-grader, however, were learning new words. A new index card tacked up on my “Word Wall” meant that anyone in my vicinity would be stuck hearing that word in every sentence for the next week and a half. Longer words were even more special. One that stands out to me was the word “Consequence.” Haven’t the foggiest idea why, but it struck me as mind-bogglingly beautiful. According to the simple definition someone gave me, it meant “punishment,” so I proceeded to use it as such. A lot. “Do people get consequenced more for stealing food or for stealing markers?” “This is way too much of a consequence for staying up two hours past my bedtime!” “Mom, I promise it wasn’t me who broke your coffee mug, but, just in case, can you please not consequence me?” Eventually, of course, time passed and my vocabulary improved. But, until recently, the difference between punishment and consequence never entered my mind.
Take a moment to think back to a time when you were presented a comprehensive, crystal-clear instruction. Maybe it was: “Do Not Microwave,” or “Do Not Open Door: Alarm Will Sound.” Or, perhaps something along the lines of “Do Not Enter: High Voltage,”or “Warning: Read Instructions Before Using.” With a few possible exceptions, (Do you really know anyone who reads the entire user manual before using a blender?) these direct commands are fairly conductive to obedience - they tend to demand relatively little sacrifice on our part. Additionally, they make us painfully aware that any undesirable repercussions that result from our ignoring them are entirely our own fault: we may live in a culture that allowed for the flourishing of frivolous lawsuits, (Remember the last time you spilled your McDonald’s coffee?) those who have been given clear warnings are deprived of the power to conveniently shift the blame to another, and instead, are forced to accept their responsibility for the aftermath of their neglecting the rules.
(Before we continue, I ought to mention that this Americano-Addict’s religious views in no way align with the Bible, and it is not my intent to perpetrate any sort of opinion regarding religious faith. We’re just using some history as an example. So, let’s make a fresh pot of coffee and have a nice, thoughtful, peaceful chat. Anyone offended can proceed to continue scrolling through pictures of their friends’ lunches on Instagram. ‘Kay?)
If one were to compile a Best-seller List for all of human history, there is no doubt that the Bible would be nearly uncontested for the top spot - the work has so infiltrated our society that it is now reportedly the most-stolen book of all time as well. The stories and lessons of the Bible have inspired an unprecedented amount of faith, analysis, and conflict. If, for a moment, we shift our focus from the generally-skimmed-over text on packing labels to, arguably, the most read text on Earth, we do not escape examples of near-omniscient superiours giving clear instructions that more so “direct mandates,” than they are “bits of friendly advice.” The second chapter of Genesis tells us: “And the lord god commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die (Holy Bible, Genesis. 2:16-17.)’” Straightforward? Undeniably. Plain and simple? Absolutely. Short of wrapping this infamous tree in the closest thing god had to “CAUTION” Tape, I doubt he could have made his instructions any more explicit. If, in spite of the endless bliss they were offered, Adam and Eve were to choose to disobey, it seems only natural that the pair would not be able to escape bearing the burden of their transgression, (even without considering their inability to slap God with a lawsuit and defend their case on questionable-quality daytime television.)
Over time, many readers have drawn conclusions from this story - and the many others in the Old Testament- regarding a multitude of subjects ranging from resisting temptation, to the nature of the soul and spirit, to the inherent inequality of the sexes in society. However, many of the intricate theories about the intent of the Bible rely on very subjective and liberal interpretation of details and motifs that are not consistent from one translation to another. I personally don’t make a habit of basing my personal principles on the results of yet another conflict between two brothers. However, if one were to strip away the fallible, and somewhat antiquated, details of the actions of the Old Testament’s characters, and to refrain from translating the verses of scripture into rules and restrictions for members of modern society, one can nonetheless extract from the Bible a lesson that it seems to make very clear to its readers: when we choose our behaviour, we also choose our consequences.
At the very least, we can all agree that “Free” is generally a good thing, right? We can free the slaves and free the wrongly-imprisoned. Some of us will spend our time raving about free trade, and others will sit in class, waiting for the teacher to say “You’re free to go,” since (as we’re all too aware of, “The bell does not dismiss us.”) We can answer surveys on subjects we couldn’t care less about in order to obtain free useless rubber wristbands, and we can tweet out to ALL our friends that we found the best chinese restaurant ever to get a Buy-One-Get-One-Free egg roll. You can read best-selling self-help books to “free your soul.” I swear to god that if you make it explicitly clear that this orange is Fat, Gluten, Nut, and Sodium “Free,” you could sell it for five dollars. Apparently, this applies to the Bible, too.
Perhaps one of the most the well-known - and most alluring- verses of scripture promises to the reader: “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciple. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Naturally, this made the teachings of the Bible incredibly appealing to those oppressed by the evils of slavery, the terrors of prosecution, the tyranny of government, or the struggles of poverty, as it promised freedom to the downtrodden, at least in a spiritual sense. However, the hope of gaining freedom from the Bible is not limited to those seeking salvation through ecclesiastical devotion. A reader looking through a lens in which knowledge is the only universal truth, and the first man was not Adam, but instead some sort of Homo habilis, may see the Bible’s promise differently. If the truth sets one free, and the only way to become a seer of greater truths is to become a seeker of greater knowledge then, with its famous promise of liberation, the Bible claims to contain the greatest wisdom. And, I’d venture to say that it does - even though this shred of wisdom doesn’t lie in one magical, easily-quotable line of scripture that we can shout from mountaintops and tattoo on our forearms. If the various figures and narratives contained in the pages of this world-renowned book do teach us something about wisdom, it isn’t that the secret to procuring it lies in constant prayer, selfless sacrifice or blind faith. Nor is this wisdom attained by wearing skirts that reach the floor, being chaste until age thirty, circumcising entire peoples, or avoiding shirts made from (gasp,) two different fibres. If Adam, Eve, Cain, or Esau were to shout anything from Mount Ararat, it would be that wisdom consists simply of the anticipation of consequences.
The liberating effect of accepting the reality of consequences for our actions is not obvious at first glance. However, upon learning this, we are essentially informed that we are free to act however we like. Of course, the lesson contained in the Bible, and in any other story of decision and repercussion, is that this freedom to act in the manner we choose has a caveat; we are free to make whatever choice we want, but we are not free from the consequences of our choices. Let that sink in for a moment, and then consider yourself liberated. Boom! You’re more free from restrictions than almond milk is from hormones.You don’t want to study? Fine! You don’t want to pay your taxes? Go for it! Feel like blowing your entire savings account on a pink alligator-skin clutch? Be my guest! (and pick one up for me too.). By this theory, even murder is, in some way, acceptable. Go right ahead, s long as you don’t mind the prison time and look hella-fly in an orange jumpsuit (or don’t mind being shoved on death row for 30 years and never executed, since we seem to do that a lot lately.) In a world where there are no punishments - only actions and consequences, choosing our deeds is like shopping in a store: anything is available to you as long as you’re truly willing and able to pay the price. It seems that paying 60 dollars for an Uber to Staten Island and accepting some cubicle-warfare after stealing your co-worker’s stapler are not all that different.
he Hebrew Bible is said to have been written down for the first time around the 6th century B.C., Over two thousand years later, it continues to be stolen from Walmart, pop up in hotel nightstands, be not-read by sunday school kids everywhere, and otherwise influence our society. We live in a time when discoveries in the fields of psychology and neuroscience call the very notion of us having free will into question. However, we continue to think of our societies, and the problems and solutions we encounter in them, as being products of our cumulative choices. Even if the role of religion in our daily life slowly declines, and studying the Bible ceases to be mandatory in school, this centuries-old text can still give us freedom, since we attain true redemption when we truly accept the future consequences for our past mistakes. We live in in an era in which shepherds, woven fabric, and crop sacrifices are nearly obsolete. People claiming to have heard directly from god are more likely to become nude-tantric-yoga teachers than they are to be prophets, and we spend all too much of our time arguing about genetically-modified soybeans and gluten-free waffles. Nonetheless, we would do well to remember the lesson from the Bible that resists antiquation even without L'Oréal’s newest anti-aging retinol cream. We all do a variety of questionable things, ranging from lying on our resumes to commiting tax fraud. Sooner or later, be it to a McDouble, avocado-toast, or a 7 dollar waffle from a food truck, we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.
