Your system of ethics: a primer

Because you don’t believe in god and have only learned basic religious tenets through television, your system of ethics is complicated. This is because it’s not really a “system” so much as it is a confusing popsicle sculpture designed by a 5-year-old and barely held together with half-eaten paste. Luckily, your senses of shame and guilt are so dominant that essentially you live the same life that a “good” person would lead. This means that you don’t kill people or actively cause other people harm (other than spreading your imaginary diseases to them). Still, you’re probably fine with the idea of most crimes, and are probably a closet kleptomaniac, even if you only steal, say, office supplies, justifying it to yourself because it makes up for the salary you should be making. In fact, the idea of being a criminal is probably incredibly appealing, if only you had the balls or drive to plan it out and do it. But of course you don’t.

Still, in moments you generally won’t discuss with other people, you might find yourself wanting to be an actual “good” person, not just a non-bad person. Maybe you’ll read an article about how much life sucks in Africa or Asia and decide that you want to “help.” Hooray! You’re not as shitty as you thought! You’ve thought about someone other than yourself for once! Well, don’t get excited, because after you’ve reached this self-discovery you will proceed to do one of two things:

1) You will way overthink who deserves help most and ultimately become so overwhelmed by guilt and helplessness over not being able to save everybody that you’ll actually end up doing nothing but wallowing in guilt over your own easy life. Because there’s the people who are starving from the flood and the people whose village just burned down, but then there’s also the kids who need immunization but there’s also the earthquake victims, and then there’s all of Africa, which, Jesus Christ, let’s not even talk about that right now. Jesus. H. Christ.
2) You will go online and donate $20 to, well, whomever, and hope that someone else manages to save a million people with it.

Good work.