Moral Dilemmas: My Version

CallMeQuell posted this survey/quiz on her page, asking that we post our answers on our own pages, so here they are. These answers are pretty true to my personality; I don't feel as if I was equivocating.

1. After a party your boss generously offers to drive a group of children home who have no other way to get there...he's quite drunk.
   Do you:
   A) Suggest the children spend the night
   B) Cross your fingers and hope for the best
   C) Call another driver or the police and risk getting fired 
   
   My answer: C. It seems the most responsible answer.
    


2. You fall in love, but all your friends hate him or her. 
   Do you:
   A) Get new friends
   B) Suggest that your lover change their personality
   C) Keep the two worlds separate
   
   My answer: D. I realize there is no "D", but there is an essential choice that was left out: "D: Ditch the loser!". The wiser course may be to listen to your friends. They can often see things in a person that you might be blinded to. If my friends are generally dim-witted buffoons whose opinions I never trusted, I'd go with "C".
    


3. Your brother is a banker who has profited from the economic collapse. He offers to share his profits with you. 
   Do you:
   A) Turn him in
   B) Give your share to charity
   C) Refuse the gift but remain silent
   
   My answer: C. The money is tainted. Let him keep it all.
    


4. Your neighbor has the same house and mortgage as you, but has refinanced in order to purchase a new car, swimming pool, and flat screen TV. He is now broke and requesting publicly financed debt forgiveness. 
   Do you:
   A) Let him sink—it was his own greed that got him into this mess
   B) Forgive his debt—a homeless person will become a financial drain on everyone—and hope that he knows better next time
   C) Offer to take his car and TV in exchange for forgiveness
   
   My answer: A. Debt forgiveness isn't mine to dish out to anyone, since nothing is directly owed to me. I don't have the power to forgive his debt, so I assume he might just be looking for a conscience salve.
    


5. You can see into the future, and you have the opportunity to tell your friends what will happen to them and when. 
   Do you:
   A) Tell them only the good news
   B) Keep everything to yourself
   C) Let them face the truth, however unpleasant
   
   My answer: B. Agreeing with Quell, this would ultimately depend on if knowing the future would empower you to change it. If by knowing one could change the future, then I'd tell them. If nothing could be changed, I'd keep everything to myself.
    


6. You discover through a bureaucratic error that you are receiving free phone, cable, electricity, and gas. 
   Do you:
   A) Correct the error
   B) Feign ignorance and tell no-one
   C) Share everything with your neighbors
   
   My answer: A. This is theft, no matter how you look at it (Texas Penal Code, Section 31.04). Two wrongs, you know...
    


7. Your grandfather, on his deathbed, tells you he never liked you. 
   Do you:
   A) Stoically let him get it off his chest
   B) Assume he's demented
   C) Tell him the feeling is mutual
   
   My answer: A. His opinion only. In a few minutes, he'll be standing before his Maker, and he'll see the truth then.
    


8. A man on an airplane confesses to you that he has committed a truly horrible crime. 
   Do you:
   A) Leave justice in the hands of God
   B) Surreptitiously turn in the guilty party
   C) Ask to change seats
   
   My answer: B. It's not just the job of the criminal justice system to bring wrongdoers to justice. If you have special knowledge, it's your job, through whatever means you can safely make it known.
    


9. You are accosted in a dark alley by 3 armed youths who demand your wallet—but, unknown to them, you are carrying a semi-automatic weapon. 
   Do you:
   A) Administer justice—shoot first
   B) Pull your weapon but offer to leave peacefully
   C) Give them your wallet and avoid confrontation
   
   My answer: A. You never know if "B" will work or not, so the only option which will guarantee that I go home this night is to shoot first.
    


10. Alien invaders threaten to turn everyone into mindless drones—but everyone will get rich. 
    Do you:
    A) Take the money and adapt
    B) Fight to the death and stay poor
    C) Fake adaptation
    
    My answer: B. Some things are more important that safety and money. Freedom comes to the fore...
     


11. You stumble upon evidence that your boyfriend or girlfriend is cheating on you, but he or she is just about to take you on a trip that you've been waiting for your whole life. 
    Do you:
    A) Wait and confront them during the trip
    B) Confront them now and risk the trip
    C) Enjoy the trip and hope that it was just a temporary thing 
    
    My answer: D: Confront them after you return from the trip. I've always had a penchant for poetic justice. With a forced choice though, I'd have to go with "B". I don't think I could enjoy the trip with that knowledge unless I knew the tables would turn when we got back.
     


12. You're on an airplane—the beautiful woman or man seated next to you falls asleep and starts to lean on you. 
    Do you:
    A) Smoothly put your arm around him or her
    B) Wedge a pillow in between the two of you as a divider
    C) Wake the person up and then return to your reading
    
    My answer: B. This assumes that doing nothing and simply enjoying the situation as it is would not be a choice.
     


13. You're in line at the train station, you're late, and a little man, feigning ignorance, cuts in front of you. 
    Do you:
    A) Ignore him; it's not worth a scene
    B) Shout, "Hey buddy, the end of the line is back there"
    C) Reciprocate—cut in front of him
    
    My answer: B or C. "B" seems to be the gutsier response, but "C" seems the more just.
     


14. You can save the lives of hundreds of people, but you must kill your own mother. 
    Do you:
    A) Do nothing, as you value family above all else
    B) Beg forgiveness, but do the deed
    C) Suggest that Mom decide for herself
    
    My answer: B. I find it hard to believe that such a limited-choice scenario would ever exist in reality, while they are frequent in "24" and the Spiderman movies. Mom would agree with the choice, and if she disagrees...well, she's a selfish pig who should die.
     


15. You have the opportunity to make a lot of money, but you will lose all your friends. 
    Do you:
    A) Assume that you will make new friends
    B) Ignore temptation, as you value your friendships
    C) Take the money, live frugally, and don't tell your friends 
    
    My answer: B.  "C", as an answer, doesn't fit the question. I don't see an option in the question to keep the information from your friends, therefore having your cake and eating it, too.

 

Looking Out for #2

I've embarked on an adventure, the scope of which is breathtaking, the breadth of which is ambitious. I am seeking teach my children to overcome their inborn selfish tendencies.

Given the chances for success, I might as well be trying to cure cancer, discover perpetual motion, or find an honest politician. The foolhardiness of this venture is illustrated that in my nearly half-century of living (cringe), I have personally failed to get a grip on my own selfish inclinations. Apparently, the best that we can hope for in this life is to lessen the control that selfishness has over our day-to-day existence. These days, even a slight advantage in this area will set you up with a saintly appearance amongst your peers. Saintly, or suckerly, that is.

Part of overcoming my own selfish inclinations includes sacrificing my right to recompense, restitution and revenge. I must learn to tolerate the losers, the inconsiderate, the hyper-selfish amongst us. This includes:

1. Idiots that talk on cell phones in certain public places - Waiting lines are especially painful places to listen to other people's stupid cell phone conversations. The more bland and insipid the conversation, the more painful to endure. I was once subjected to an old man's cell phone conversation in a post office waiting line, which is one of the quietest places on earth, second only to a high school classroom after the teacher asks a question. Old people don't know how to talk in hushed tones, so by the end of his conversation, I was wondering how many people in line would join me in beating him up.


2. Idiots that merge at the last minute - When two lanes merge down to one, courtesy dictates that you merge ASAP, not ride the dying lane to it's end and then expect to merge ahead of the whole line of more considerate drivers. It never fails that some sucker will be nice and let this loser in, so the lesson is never learned and they continue to see the benefits to being a total selfish jerk. There is nothing more prone to inspire road rage in me than this.


3. Idiots that play loud music at stop lights - Even if you had good taste in music--which you do not--I wouldn't want to listen to it at this volume. In fact, all I can hear is your thumping sub-woofer. Whatever you are trying to prove, the only thing we're understanding is that you are a self-obsessed jerk. The one justice is that you will probably lose your hearing soon and won't be able to enjoy music at all. 

There's room on this list for many other idiots, but these are the ones that get my goat with the fiercest intensity. 

In a house full of people, which mine is, you cannot afford to have each member of the household acting independently, each seeking his own, each looking out for only himself. That would never work. You must work to serve the Collective. Resistance is futile.

Actually, the lesson I want these kids to learn is that we are to emulate someone who never had a selfish thought in his life. He lived his life fully and completely for others, and we are to follow that model in our own pitiful, stunted way. I say "pitiful" and "stunted", for trying to live like Christ lived is not nearly as easy as modeling the picking style of Geddy Lee or learning to slap and tap like Victor Wooten. Instead of this easy, it seems impossible. Burdened by a nature that wants to serve #1 and #1 alone, we have to take self out to the woodshed and do some butt-whoopin'. Usually with me, the butt-whoopin' stuff goes a little both ways. Sometimes it's me doing the whoopin', other times it's me getting whooped. I know who must come out on top though, so I keep working on my moves.

It's a battle we must fight on principle, whether the chances of winning are good or not. So when you find yourself on the front lines, and you look around and see that those to your left and to your right have retreated, leaving you all alone, determine to press ahead anyway. Living a selfish life just puts you into the same large, misguided group as everyone else, and someone needs to set the example for the undisciplined masses.

Having trouble getting motivated? Watch this commercial from Liberty Mutual (and the one after it). I'm inspired by it (them) every time I see it (them).  

 

 

The Phantom Vibe

For as long as I have had a cell phone (almost 10 years), I have understood the value of the vibe-mode. I am constantly in places where I don't want the phone to ring, yet I can't always afford to be out of contact for that length of time. I may be on-call or I may just want to be available for the kids. Putting my phone on vibe has been a big help in these situations. Given that I have almost always kept my phone in a case on my belt, it's not hard to sense the vibe and answer within the first ring or two. 

Within the last 3 generations of phones I've used (BlackBerry, KRAZR, and before that, the classic RAZR), I've noticed that I will often sense a vibe when no vibe has occurred. I termed this the "phantom vibe". In conversations with a co-worker, I have discovered that he, too, experiences the phantom vibe on occasion. His situation is the same: he keeps his phone in a case on his belt. We've both marveled at the weirdness of it all. It's all too easy to experience the phantom vibe when I'm driving somewhere, but vibrations of the vehicle are easily transferred to the buckle of the seat belt creating a real sensation that actually masks real phone vibrations, so I take the phone out, put it on ring, and stick it somewhere on the console.

There are a lot of people with phones that obsessively check their phone, as if missing a call or a text would ruin their day and send their social life into a disastrous tailspin (It won't happen, people. Remember what life was like before your cell phone?). The phantom vibe has nothing to do with that peculiarity. It is an actual sensation of a vibration happening on your hip, not an obsessiveness of phone checkage. 

Well, if the phantom vibe isn't strange enough, I experienced something yesterday that trumps even that. I first noticed it as I was quietly enjoying a nice, shady spot at Greenwood (a cemetery in Fort Worth). I quietly waited for the cemetery crew to arrive and close my grave, and as I waited I noticed a vibration in my knee. I reach down to the area that was supposedly vibrating to determine if it were a real vibration or some freaky neural thing, and it moves further down my leg. Another time, it quits altogether. When I just sat there, assuming a position of indifference, it would return, along and about the vicinity of my knee. This story only gets weirder when you consider that the vibration was pulsing, just like my BlackBerry. There would be about 2.5 seconds of vibe, 2.5 seconds of nothing, then 2.5 seconds of vibe, which sort of added an air of man-madeness to it all. The pattern was continual, so whatever call I was receiving through my knee was not going to voicemail. At about the same time, I received a real call on my BB, and the timing of the vibes was remarkably similar, if not nearly identical.

When I got back to the office, I told a co-worker about the phantom vibe and my new phantom knee vibe experience. She starts telling me stories of folks back home that hear voices of people in their heads, as if my tale and their tales are similar. I quickly dismiss the comparison.

Not much later, as I sit at my desk, the knee vibe starts again. I reach down again, and it disappears, as if to elude detection and remove any evidence of its realness. I've had muscle twitches in my arms and legs before, and when you look down you can actually see the muscle going tick, tick, tick. None of that here. This thing is far smarter than that. Then I take my phone off my belt and place it on my desk, which is my desperate attempt to determine causality, as if my BlackBerry will possibly cause my knee to vibrate. The vibe remains. I then force myself to ignore it and it eventually goes away, though I don't remember when.

As of right now, it's gone. I have no doubts it will return.

Journey into the Darkness of Heart

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

There is a darkness in each of us. It is a place where we do things--dark, secret things--that would undo us were they to come to light. Even the most upright of men has a dark place. Dark thoughts, evil deeds, perversity--we keep these things in this dark place, trying to keep it secure, under that proverbial lock and key. 

My commute to/from Fort Worth takes me through a small community (I prefer to withhold the name, if you don't mind). This community exemplifies this darkness of heart in many ways. Besides two convenience stores and a liquor store, there is a topless bar and an adult bookstore. There are also one or two places that house 8-liners, usually unmarked facilities as 8-liners are marginally illegal. Anyone driving this stretch of highway can see these things. To delve more deeply into the community, you have to search the Texas Sex Offenders Database. 

A search of this zip code always shows at least a few registered offenders living in this small community. There is a mobile home park just off the highway that houses most of these fellows. As is usually necessary, they are often transient residents, there for a while and then moving on. Their numbers here are always changing.

Most of us will never commit such acts. While far from innocent, there is a governing mechanism in us that doesn't allow certain things. In certain people, this governor has been bypassed, and the perversity of their dark actions tends to grow more and more perverse with each act. One reason that the Sex Offenders Database exists in Texas is because of the incredibly high rate of recidivism amongst sex offenders. It is unfortunate that we cannot assume that reformation is likely. 

The adult bookstore is the place that sickens me the most. I know, in a general sense, what they hawk there. I also know, in a more specific sense, other things that happen behind their doors.  Man's depravity, it seems, knows no boundaries. Thankfully, most of us live our lives in innocent ignorance of these things. Yet to drive through this community at night or in the early ours of the morning and to see the parking lot full of cars both angers me and sickens me. Part of living in a free country, I suppose. 

The internet has opened new frontiers to us, too. It allows us to go to places we would never set our foot, all from the perceived safety of our desk chair. We can sit there, bathed in the glow of flesh-colored pixels, then resume our normal lives with no one knowing where we've been or what we've done. Driving up to an adult bookstore assumes a certain amount of risk, as someone you know who would normally think better of you might see your car. Uprightness is apparently no vaccine; we hear almost daily of some minister here or there who has been caught with some type of porn on his computer. Oh, the virtual anonymity of the internet!

Then there are those of us whose darkness of heart leaves no traces. No browsing history to stumble on. No license plates outside an unwindowed building. Shameful acts take place between our ears. Deeds and perversions exist only in our thought life, never finding fruition in being acted out. 

Some might see this as an occasion to be proud of their moral superiority. I don't. I look across the aisle from where I sit and I see this man whose name, address, photo, employer and conviction history are there for all to see. I know that only a few feet of carpet separate us. It's not the physical distance I speak of either; it's how easy it would be to cross that few feet and be seated next to him, doing what he has done. Were circumstances different, that could be me.  Had I been weak at certain moments, I would be in his seat. No, thankfully, I have not been tempted in that way, and no, this is not likely to be a problem for me, yet I purpose not to assume that I am invincible. 

It's never a moment's indiscretion either. It's a series of indiscretions which seem innocent enough at first, one building on another until a crack forms in that wall and it tumbles over, flooding that dark room with light. It always seems innocent at first, but it never is.

I'll never understand how some are infused with a weakness that allows such decadence while others can remain untainted by all but the most secret of stains. I'm thankful. I consider this a gift. I desire to remain vigilant, even steering clear of even those flesh-colored pixels as I am able. I hope to be infused with strength instead of weakness and to overcome instead of giving in. I know my heart. It is indeed a dark place. There are corners into which this light will never fall. Secrets are there, not horrible ones that would destroy me, nor even ones that would derail me in a political election or a run for the Supreme Court. They are simply dark, embarrassing secrets that are shameful examples of my depravity. We all have them, and we all battle to keep them hidden and to know which ones to illuminate. There is enough already known about me to prove my depravity without adding more to it.