Re: Ethics

Mood: Introspective
Music: Maroon 5

It has recently come to my attention that I have a problem:

I am obsessed with ethics.

Well, not really a problem. I just find it fascinating. Its amazing to me how unethical people really are. I'm among them to be sure, but it seems like theres a difference between me and most others in that I am VERY aware of every unethical act I commit, no matter how inconsequential (Just to give you an example, I'm currently debating whether I should save the Boy Scouts money by shopping at Wal-Mart when purchasing stuff for camp on their dime, even though I know it hurts America and the economy and I don't shop there with my own money of which I have very little...yes I think too damn much)

But its very unsettling at times. I find myself feeling like I can't enjoy life as much as other people. Because, even after I argue internally with myself and finally DO convince myself to commit said whatever atrocity that I have convinced myself is wrong, I end up retracing it in my head and, though nothing went wrong, no one got hurt, and nothing bad happened, I always end up losing sleep over it.

It's gotten so bad that I can't even lie anymore, even about little things. I remember with fondness the days when I could tell a teacher that I really DID turn that homework assignment in or say to a girl that the last thing I was interested in was sex (not that its something I expect or anything, but lets be honest: I'm a 21 year old male, its floating around in this giant head of mine somewhere I promise). Those were good times.

A couple weeks ago I faced another ethical dillemma: when one of the teenagers working for me at camp asks how he's doing, should I tell him that he is a worthless waste of my time, his mere presence makes my job take longer than it would were he not there thus leaving me short-staffed, he has an incredible ability to screw up even the simplest of tasks, and that I never want to see him in my area again; or do I tell him he's doing fine while doing my best not to strangle him? You see, if I do the former, I could shatter his fragile teenage self-esteem, but if I do the latter, I'm doing both of us a disservice by lying; me because I'll lose sleep over it and him because he wouldn't know that he was very incredibly bad at his job. Naturally, I was trying to decide what level of mediation between the two answers was appropriate, but all of that was for naught because he answered that question for us when he whipped out his pocketknife and started cutting on the benches on the range for no reason short of being bored, so I just fired him.

Not a great example, but indicative of the crap that is constantly going through my head. So yes I am, for lack of a better term, a crazy person. How other people can commit far more atrocious acts than buying a mop assembled by a phillipino child and sold by a person who has worked at the store for a decade and still only makes a quarter above minimum wage is mind boggling to me. Yet, not only do they do it, they do it without even thinking about it.

Gotta love it.

I was almost shot this week...

...And no, it wasn't from a reader.

I'm working at a Boy Scout summer camp as the shooting sports director. It's my job, as director, to run the firing line. When doing this, if I see anything wrong, I yell out "Cease Fire", at which point the shooters (should) know to place their firearms down and unload them.

Anyway, I give the ocmmand for the kids to load and fire. I see one kid having trouble loading the rifle. So then I call for a cease fire. No big deal, usually. Suddenly, this one kid, no less than fifteen feet from me turns with his entire body holding the rifle in his hands, the muzzle pointing directly at my chest, and says, "What did you say?"

I was like a deer caught in headlights.

Fortunately, my assistant was walking behind the firing line and was less than five feet from the kid. As soon as he turned, my assistant bolted over and grabbed the rifle, pointing it down range before jerking it out of his hands with one hand and grabbing the kid by the collar of his shirt with the other and almost literally throwing him off the range.

All of this took place in the span of about four seconds. I never believed in the whole "time slowing down" or whatever before then, but I swear those four seconds were like hours stretching out forever. Suddenly, I saw myself signing my contract, then I saw the camp director saying "How would you like to be shooting sports director?" Then I was a teenager again, earning my own rifle merit badge. Then I was ten, and my dad was putting a gun in my hand for the first time and was teaching me how to shoot. I was, in effect, retracing the steps which lead me to be in the position I was in at that very moment, and the whole time all I could think was "I'm too young to die. I'm too young to die. I'm too young to die..."

It was the scariest moment of my life.

So I was not functioning very well for awhile, but then I remembered my director's course. All of them said they'd had several loaded guns pointed at them by kids not paying attention, and still none of them had ever mentioned being shot, and they'd been doing it for years.

That helped me feel better. I wasn't quite the same the rest of the week, and I doubt I'll be much the same the rest summer (or even the rest of my life for that matter), but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be okay.

I've just never actually faced my own mortality before. I've never seen the possibility of death coming right toward me. I used to joke about being martyred because of my beliefs about the govenrment, or politics, or religion, or whatever else I've opened my mouth about, and it was kinda funny, but I don't think I'm going to do that anymore.

I've now seen the very real possibility of my own death, and I can safely say that I do not want to die.

But I'm going to be okay. I just don't think that I will ever quite feel the same around firearms anymore. I still love shooting, but I just feel...I don't know really. Just not the same.

Anyway, the staff and my friends have been really cool in listening and such. The ropes course staff heard about it and took me off the climbing tower zipline at 2 in the morning in total darkness, which was totally awesome, and I felt better. Thanks guys.

And thanks to everyone else that let me vent to them. I needed it. Thank you.