rewards
rewards play a strange part in our lives, don't they? we work hard to win one. some of us never do. imagine that, you work your whole life for a reward, hell any reward, and in the end you have a lifetime of cold gruel to show Death when he comes for you. but most of us do, win a reward or two, or win one more than once. and what we learn is that to win the next reward, even if it is the same reward, is to work harder or longer or smarter or slyer. whoever is in charge of rewards uses them to modify our behavior and to taunt and tantalize us, and to torment us. rewards are never just a kindness, never just a candle-flame in a dark world. but they work! we do modify our behavior, we do strive harder, longer, smarter, and slyer. rewards are employed to give us hope and despair both. and the reward-granters don't really care which overwhelms us, they win either way. oh, you mock, what about the golden boys whose life is one reward after another. they are part of the game, there to show us how arbitrary it is. some few of them bliss their lives away, scarcely aware that the reward-granters can take it all away at a whim. some of them suddenly do lose the favor of the reward-granters, and become the butt of crude jokes as they do over and over what used to win them the rewards, and nothing shows up. if you are very strong-willed, you can convince yourself that the world is really fair, and if you just do the right thing, see? you do get the reward. it's probably a happier way to live, and your odds of getting a reward are just as good if you believe that. the rewards-granters don't care what you believe, so long as you keep playing the game. and if you don't? so what? you don't get any rewards. unless you do. it's a lovely game!
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