Any Other Sunday

Here I am, relaxing and enjoying some very mild weather by winter standards.  It is not too cold at all today and it is helping me find some much needed motivation to continue study.

Last weekend saw me mired in the depths of writing an essay, and while there are a few more of them to go in this subject, it was good to get the first one out the way and receive some helpful advice from Sue on writing papers.  I need to work more on waffling less, repeating myself, and learning to structure an argument.  This is going to be a challenge for me to arrest my short attention span long enough to set out a coherent plan of attack and form that into a coherent, logical, and punchy argument.

I have also been using a pair of crappy headphones to listen to lectures the last 4 weeks, in deference to the fact that I live in a townhouse and neither the rest of my household nor the neighbourhood want to hear the salient points of ethics discussed at great volume.  In this I stand in opposition to my neighbour, who operates on the assumption that we cannot hear his surround sound system when he is watching a dvd.  I am also using new headphones as an excuse to get in a bit more music listening without annoying others.

So the last few weeks of study have focused on the Greek philosophers, Epicurus, the Stoics, Aristotle, but this week we start to move into looking at cultural diversity and moral relativism.  It's the question of whether there are any moral absolutes in this world, or does all our morality derive from the culture we live in?  I like to think there are some lines we won't cross as a species, and that we are evolving and becoming more conscious, learning to love others and the world we have to share.  The more I think about ethics though the more I wonder.  And I wonder if I am that evolved or conscious? 

I wish I had answers, but I guess I must just keep pressing on towards the goal of a well-lived life.