IN THE COURT

In The Court

After awhile the bureaucracy survives on routines. The structures are set up and people become automatons fulfilling their role in maintaining the system. People stop seeing. Stop feeling. Stop caring.

The whole purpose of the institution is corrupted. But what matters most is to keep the system moving along. Jargon develops and many insiders thrive in the institutional setting. 

When the system is supposed to dispense justice fairly and humanely -- then what is lost is more pronounced.

In the trial of the peasant accused of murdering his wife -- we are introduced to how an individual case gets sucked up into the machine.

As Chekhov writes: "The peasant, reassured, did not understand that the men here were as accustomed to the dramas and tragedies of life and were blunted by the sight of them as hospital attendants are at the sight of death, and that the whole horror and hopelessness of his position lay just in this mechanical indifference."

Chekhov then creates a situation which warrants attention. Which should wake people up from the usual routine. However, the shock provides only a respite. In no time, it's back to business again.

What we are witnessing is bureaucracy. Necessary but poisonous. It happens in hospitals, in schools, and in many other governmental agencies. The soul gets lost in the maddening rush.

Serious reform is needed. Or is this just the reality?

The court has many cases to deal with -- if everyone got special attention -- if all the people involved actually put a hundred percent behind each case -- the system would grind to a halt.

When we choose to live packed together in towns and cities -- then we've chosen our lot. We sacrifice individuality for the group. We give up a certain amount of freedom for function.

We all share responsibility for maintaining the system.

In fact, we become the system.

A BAD BUSINESS

A Bad Business

So you're a watchman in a graveyard. Most of the time -- probably all of the time nothing happens. What could happen? The gates are closed. But it's still a graveyard.

So when a stranger appears -- you don't know what to make of  it.

When you work in a graveyard -- you must have entertained ideas of ghosts at some time. An occupational hazard?

And so when the stranger appears you must have your suspicions.  How did the stranger enter? The gate is closed. There has to be something out of the norm.

And when the stranger reveals he is the living dead. You fall for it. Why not? Who would make something like that up?

We all harbor deep seated fears about death and the afterlife and that makes for good business.

Many out there capitalize on this fear -- from a crooked preacher promising you an eternal afterlife for a small donation or a drug company selling you a miracle pill. Not to mention writers and movie producers.

Don't know how much the thieves got -- but somehow it doesn't seem like there would be a whole bunch of treasure in a church inside a cemetery. But maybe there is -- after all they do have three watchmen for a reason. And it seems like an easy mark.

Speaking of easy marks -- just read a story of a thief breaking into a candy store in Coney Island in the middle of the winter. 

I remember a friend telling me he was robbed on a freezing day in January while he worked in an ice cream store. My friend actually asked the robber -- do you realize this is an ice cream store and it's freezing outside?

A thief has his own logic.

So do ghosts.