OK, OK, what's your point?

It's a fair question, I'll admit it, but I'll also tell you right up front, you'll probably not like the answer.

We all like to think of ourselves as moral beings, upright individuals with strong sense of right and wrong. If you've been following closely and perhaps even reading between the lines, you'll find that truth be told we're just as immoral as the next scoundrel, the one we despise, the person whom we probably dislike the most. It's a hard lesson to learn, believe me. In the School of Reality, you get to do the lesson over and over and over again till you get it right. Some manage before the end of their days, some don't.

If that didn't sound like a consoling word, that's only because it wasn't. You don't get any points for almost getting it. You not only have to get it, you have to practice it, otherwise there are no points to be had.

To take just the examples we've looked at thus far (killing, stealing, harming others), if you see any of them happening, if you are witness to any of them in any way and you say nothing, or you do nothing ... if you just let it slide, for any reason whatsoever, then you are just as guilty as the one who is actually performing the act.

We could apply the same measure to any number of other things, such as lying or breaking promises (e.g. marriage vows, contracts, informal agreements), and the results would be the same: in not speaking out against the immorality we become a party to it. If some kinds of killing and some kinds of stealing and some kinds of harming and some kinds of lying and some kinds of promise-breaking are OK, we have to ask ourselves not only why, but who decides which ones these are? Who adjudicates in matters of morals? Ourselves? Our religion? And what if we have no religion, but we still claim to be moral beings? If you pick and choose when and how you apply your morality, you're really little more than an opportunist who is merely looking out for his or her own advantage. (I have to admit, I have a bit of a problem taking such people seriously or thinking that what they have to offer is of any value at all.)

For those of you who believe that I'm making this unnecessarily complicated, I must say, that when you get right down to it, I'm the one who's eliminating the complications and getting down to the true matter at hand. If we believe we are truly moral individuals, then we have to act like it. We have to commit to that morality and be prepared to stand up for it, especially in hard times.

That demands courage, I know. It's not easy to step in and make others aware of their wrongdoing. To be perfectly honest, I don't hold it against any of you personally that you can't quite bring yourselves to this. It's fairly human, after all. And all I ask is that in recognition of this fact, you neither act like, nor claim to be a moral person. For that would be stretching the truth, which is a form of deception; that is, lying, and we all know, lying isn't very moral.