Gravity Works. So Does Karma.
I’ve been thinking about gravity lately.
Not in a scientific sense—I’m not running equations or revisiting physics textbooks—but in the way gravity quietly governs behavior without asking for belief.
You don’t have to agree with gravity.
You don’t have to understand it.
You don’t even have to like it.
Step off a roof without protection and gravity will make its position known.
What’s interesting is that believers and non-believers treat gravity exactly the same way. No debates. No philosophy. No arguments. Reality settles the matter.
That got me thinking about karma.
Removing the fog
Karma is one of those concepts that tends to arrive wrapped in spiritual language, cultural history, and moral overtones. Depending on who’s talking, it can sound mystical, religious, cosmic, or even punitive.
That framing turns people off—and I understand why.
So I started asking a simpler question:
What if karma isn’t mystical at all?
What if it operates more like gravity?
Not as a belief system.
Not as divine judgment.
But as cause and effect inside human systems.
How professionals think about reality
Consider how people who work with real constraints behave.
A chemist in a lab doesn’t argue with chemical reactions. Certain substances combined in certain ways produce certain outcomes. Ignore that, and the lab pushes back—sometimes violently.
A software engineer working inside an IDE doesn’t expect the compiler to care about intentions. Clean inputs lead to predictable output. Sloppy inputs produce errors. The system is neutral, not moral.
A chef in a kitchen knows that ingredients, timing, and heat matter. You can’t rush a sauce or skip steps without consequences. The dish doesn’t care what you meant to do.
None of these professionals call this karma.
They call it how things work.
Relationship mathematics
When I look at human interactions through that same lens, karma starts to look less spiritual and more mathematical.
People are systems.
Relationships are interfaces.
Behavior is input.
Response—immediate or delayed—is output.
If you consistently bring:
- hostility, you increase resistance
- clarity, you reduce friction
- generosity, you increase goodwill
- chaos, you increase drag
Over time, these patterns compound.
Not because the universe is keeping score.
But because humans respond to patterns.
That’s not morality.
That’s relationship mathematics.
Where self-leadership enters
This way of seeing karma shifts responsibility in a quiet but powerful way.
Instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?”
You start asking, “What inputs am I consistently providing?”
Not in a self-blaming way.
In a leadership way.
Just as gravity doesn’t punish falling—it simply responds—human systems respond to how we move through them.
Self-leadership is recognizing that you are not separate from the system you’re experiencing. You are participating in it.
No belief required
This framing doesn’t require theology.
It doesn’t reject it either.
It simply acknowledges that some principles operate whether we name them or not.
Just like gravity.
Call it karma.
Call it cause and effect.
Call it relationship math.
The label matters less than the observation.
When you align your actions with how things actually work, life tends to move with less resistance. When you fight the structure of reality, friction shows up—reliably.
A quieter kind of wisdom
What I like about this view is how calm it is.
No threats.
No promises.
No superstition.
Just observation, adjustment, and momentum.
That, to me, is self-leadership: learning how the system responds, then choosing your inputs with care.
Gravity doesn’t need belief to function.
And neither does karma.
Aaron Rose is a software engineer and technology writer at tech-reader.blog and aaronrose.blog.
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