I get to take ethics this semester and I’m happy because I really needed to take this class.

It’s an opportunity to think and talk and read and write about right and wrong. It’s a chance to develop and grow and work out how best to decide which thing is the right thing to do. It’s a chance to work out how to think about the niggling existential questions, to reflect on the natures of rightness and wrongness.

It’s a chance to do all of those things in the safety of a structured space. This space exists apart from the internet community of strangers, apart from the overwhelming prospect of entering into this kind of work alone.

It’s just a college class. But I’ve seen pretty amazing work happen in college classes. I’ve seen names change, I’ve seen confidence blossum, I’ve seen people realize that they could do things that they didn’t think they could. One well timed anthropology unit when I was 18 changed the way I think about gender things, for always. Those insights landed when I really needed them and I’m so glad that they let you keep that kind of thing after you graduate. Because it left a mark on me.

So I feel hopeful about what this ethics class could help me to work through and process. I spend a lot of time thinking about this material in my own life, because I think it’s important, but the way I think through things isn’t always helpful. I think thinking about these things in the context of a class could be good for me.

Also, my professor isn’t shy about where he stands in terms of what he thinks right and wrong look like in society. And the perspectives that he wasn’t at all shy about sharing on the first day of class made me feel particularly safe.

He’s a grandfatherly person from Italy. He didn’t put his perspectives into the same words that people use on the internet. But the words didn’t matter, the way the ideas were expressed didn’t matter, because underneath the words, there was belief that seemed much stronger and more real.

When you’re in philosophy, you spend a lot of time challenging your most cherished beliefs. And when you’ve challenged your beliefs for many years, the handful of things that you’ve got left combined with all the things you’ve accumulated in time are pretty fucking special.

Wish I had more elders in my life.

I needed this class so much, lol.

And I needed to write this, this morning.

I need some coffee and a book. Love you. Hope it’s a good morning 🙏 🌄