Olgunquit
Memorial Day weekend was a lot of fun. Skye and I headed to Maine to meet up with two of our friends (three, if you include the friend we made there). We went out to dinner, bought raspberry-rhubarb jam, went to the beach, and generally enjoyed the quaintness that is Olgunquit, Maine.Here is why my job is really, really important: sometimes people falsely claim that global warming doesn't exist because they mix up radians and degrees.
This is maybe not the feelings that you were hoping for, but I am going to describe being a vegan in a non-vegan world. This is very frustrating sometimes. Of course, it is frustrating because my personal ethics are in conflict with my society's ethics, and I am forced to confront this three times per day, every day (that is a little bit of an exaggeration). But it is also frustrating because food is such an important part of socializing in our culture. Even though I don't think anyone cares that I order a salad, it still feels like there is a barrier sometimes when I go out to eat with people; I am not fully participating in the socializing, since I am, say, not eating seafood when we go to a seafood restaurant. This is vaguely like going to play basketball with friends, and then sitting out. You still talk to the players on the bench and it is still fun, but you are not participating like everyone else.
Of course, I understand that I am putting myself in this situation. But do I really have a choice? How much control do you have over your views of right and wrong? Actually, that's a good question. I don't know the answer, and I don't even know what I want the answer to be. If I answer that we have control over our conception of right and wrong, then I might be able to convince myself tomorrow that it is okay to punch random strangers in the throat. This is not something that I want to do. If I say that we have no control over this, then I am justifying things like discrimination against gay people. I don't want to do this either.
On the other hand, I think that, say, discrimination against certain groups of people would conflict with some of the discriminators' other morals. For instance, can one justify hating gay people while still loving your neighbor? I don't know.
So far, I don't think that there has been an original idea in this post. Sorry.
I am researching up a storm. My teeth are sunk into this problem, and I am motivated to finish it. I am hoping to finish what I can by Friday.
My friend Nat is staying with me, and we went to John Harvard's Brew Pub to watch the Suns/Mavericks game. I am really enjoying Nat's visit.
President Isiah Thomas has no exit strategy for the Knicks.
Finally: Prehistoric ecosystems are cool.
"I wanna be a cowboy. And you can be my cowgirl."
posted by Dirk Awesome @ 12:29 PM
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