Image via WikipediaI just notice people sometimes mistake their life choices for their moral ones.
~p.133, Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane
His words keep bouncing around in my head but I haven't been sure how to articulate my thoughts about why this sentence struck me in such a significant way.
I think that maybe I'm not the only one who (whether occasionally, sometimes, or often) struggles to make that distinction - where *is* the dividing line between something that is a moral issue and something that is simply a choice an individual has made about one part of her life?
Part of the difficulty, perhaps,arises when one thinks carefully about the decisions one makes. Most people have areas of their life within which they make more deliberate decisions. I believe that it is those very decisions, the ones you take more time with, the ones that, perhaps, differ from those around you, that are the hardest to feel flexible about.
Should our end goal be to acknowledge that even if we've carefully made life choices that are based on ethical or moral reasoning doesn't mean that someone who takes a different path is wrong?
I am thinking about this too. My mom is a big Scott Peck fan and I kind of think he is (was) a big dumb doo-doo head. Not to put too fine a point on it. Anyway, I just mention him because he was pretty uppity about morality and suffering and equating them - you know, if you are a moral person you endure suffering because your reward is in the afterlife. Also he didn't really believe in love; he thought romantic love was just an illusion. I believe in love, and I believe in happiness, and I believe in them more than any so-called "morality." We make our own choices in order to find our own happiness, and that's okay. People should keep their noses out of it.
ReplyDeleteHey - we should have a long phone conversation soon! I have THINGS TO SAY. ;-)
I love you! xo
<3
ReplyDeleteI'm around today, Fiona's just off to school.
Let's talk!