Ethics and What Is Worth Doing
Right, Wrongs, and Time
A longstanding intrigue I’ve held is ethics. I think it’s fascinating. Ethics essentially concerns itself with the question of “how is it that we should act?” I find this a vital question, and I can’t imagine this question has ever been of less value to us than it is now. We need this question.
As I’ve held this question close to heart, I’ve also noticed it’s grown.
Finishing school, a former colleague told me, “you can do whatever you want after and nobody will care. There’s nobody waiting for you like in school. You can work, take time off from jobs, travel, hang out, use all that study time for video games or reading or even never go outside again.”
I am being brief with what Marlon told me then, but its truth is no short thing. After finishing school, I was thrown into time suddenly. I had more of it than before. I didn’t have to study any more, and my daytime hours that were for classes or one of many part-time jobs were now meant for a single job.
Many I know seemed to turn into more of what they were already doing. Including myself, I kept learning things and getting into projects: PRONTO, writing, etc. We found this sudden free time liberating and thrilling. But I watched this turn into a reserved kind of disappointment. These same friends would soon qualify their answers to anything close of “what have you been up to” or “what do you have going on tonight?” with hushed voices about watching Netflix or anything they felt was usual.
Standing back, I see many struggling with this, and I include myself. “How should one act” isn’t always a critical question, even though it’s important. That powerful question doesn’t actually answer the full situation. What remains is this: what is worth doing at all?
One way of approaching this would be to ask for advice or opinions. I’m for this. Reaching out for help has been life changing, and I’m fortunate to have been among warmhearted people who would receive me that way.
Seth Godin, the marketing and business genius (actually), once said that mentors are overrated and that the real win is to have heroes to look up to, people you can imagine acting in times of decision for guidance. I find that interesting, but I want to pair it with another moment from Sartre.
Sartre had this moment with a student asking about joining the resistance or staging to live his mother and care for his mother. Sartre expresses in his essay “Existentialism as a Humanism” that the boy had already decided what advice he wanted by coming to someone with well-stated political beliefs.
Combining these, I think a way forward into finding what is worth doing can be made through finding mentors and idols. If you are wondering what should be next for you, think of someone you respect. Ask them the question. Real or imagined, is that response something you already knew?
Go.
More soon,
Trevor