The Long Awaited

17th May. A beautiful day. It was pleasantly sunny, not the glare we usually get here in Singapore when the sun seems to bear down on us with a vengeance matching that of The Bride. There was a cool breeze that sent my shiny hair whipping back as I stood in the Hall 12 bus stop, wearing a long, flowing gown. The early morning mist hovered on the edges of trees and rose from around my ankles. Rahman's Vande Mataram played softly in the background. I looked down at myself - I was 5'5" and had a figure to die for.

Of course, NMK has to spoil it all by giving me a wake-up call at an unearthly 5.30 a.m. His superstitions have dictated that he book the early morning flight to BKK rather than the 10.30 a.m. one. "I like the early morning mist you see on the drive to the airport," he says in the cab. Indranil and I manage a sleepy grunt in protest.

At the airport, things get worse. There's a haphazard checking-in ritual. A very boundy Sushil drags me off in random directions, clicking snaps like a madman. I change money. We lumber off to BK's for breakfast and things start to look up - there's a Shrek 2 cushion on offer with every meal. I buy one off Ramani... and that's where my problems really start.

I'm beginning to suspect, now, at the end of it all, that the cushion is cursed or something. Nothing went right on this trip from the moment I bought it.

Now we've all ranted and ranted and .. ok.. in the process of starting a rant about it, so I won't be repetitive. What I'm going to do is a freeze-frame kind of thing.

19 May, 2 p.m. : Lunch @ random Thai restaurnt in MBK with the SP gang
Bizzare (did I spell right?) experience, that lunch, in a good way. I look at the menu and there's not so much as a plate of rice that's vegetarian - I kid you not, Thais put dried shrimp in everything. I ask the waiter, and he pops out for a bit and comes back with a waitress from the cafe next door to take my order for the only vegetarian thing that's available on their menu. Vege Delight sandwich served right where I was from the restaurant next door. Cool.
Over lunch, Jo rants about Italians stealing and fucking up the Chinese Noodle and Europeans in general learning not to eat with their fingers after seeing chopsticks. For someone who's grown up with parents chanting "Indians did that first" every way you turn, this is an eye-opening experience - suddenly, I realise everyone brags about past glory. Not just my weirdo family any more. :)
After which, Jamie and I get our eyebrows done for 40B each and shop to our heart's content. My outfit for championship dinner is finally complete.

Day's tally: One pair of sexxxy shoes - 199B, one cool black purse - 199B.

21 May, 9 p.m. : Pizza dinner @ my room (775)
After four days of sucky food we (vegetarians all, with the exception of AniBunny) hit on a great idea - why not call Pizza Hut in to soothe our deprived palates? We order 4 large pizzas between 8 people, Sushil sharing with me, the only girl in the bunch, because he was extra ravenous. The pizza guy promises to deliver to my room.
Me, Karthik and Div go up first, and I make a complete ass of myself, telling Karthik to feel free to remove his shoes by saying, "Take off everything." Perfect start to a great evening. People arrived, pizzas arrived. We switched the TV on to Star Movies in a deliberate attempt to avoid BBC for that day at least, and hit on a beaut of a movie: Shark 3.
For people who haven't watched it, this is the story of a very hungry, big, toothy shark with a twist - it's Shiv Sena.
Scene: Chap and girl in bathing suit wading hand-in-hand in shallow water. They swin out, kiss and start making out in earnest. Shark music comes on - DEE DEE DEE DEE, as Dave Barry would put it. Camera moves shakily at water surface level towards the engrossed couple (how come sharks can see above water?). Kha-chaaak! Scnatily clad girl is no more!
Scene: Man is fishing from boat. Girlfriend entices him away from the line to make out, man's hand still on rod (fishing rod, you dirty pigs). DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE - KHACHAAK! Man gets pulled into shark's mouth, along with girlfriend.
You get the picture. For the record, the heroine never makes out with the hero while at sea. She's the smart girl of the team - a marine biologist. Figures.
Nice movie, Shark 3. You might want to watch it when in a big drunk group.

Coming up...

22 May, 2 p.m. : Lunch @ John Paul XXVVIII-or-something-like-that Hall
19 May, 7 p.m. : En route to the opening ceremony
24 May, before, during and after midnight : As SMUians would put it, PIMP (party in my place)

Kids These Days

Excerpt from blog of a 17-yr-old that totally vindicates my pet theory that we (and that means YOU and me, people) are gettin OLD...

"4get abt nougatz.....luv iz in e air!!! i juz match maked my bez fren in SG n ma bro here in Auz...kool eh...din noe i cud do tt....actuali i hav done tiz kinda stuff b4...bei xia...herm herm..noe hu i tokin abt rite?? hehe ;)...n tere iz some1 else az well...cant say la or else she'll bash me up 4 sure!! :P hope tey work out...gd luck 2 u guyz ;)!!! cant exactli elaborate more on e story...dono if she mind...will find out frm her n edit if i cud k !

rite...ciao ppz...cya 2nite...hopefulli w nougats ;)"

I rest my case.

Update
I got to thinking a bit deeper about this. I think the defining attitude of youth today is frivolousness. I'm not criticising or being derogatory - well, maybe I am, a little, but not much - I'm just saying. Anything that's done with purpose is uncool. Giggling is in, absurdity means popularity, and staying in means joining in the absurdity and gioggling.

Contrast with us Gen-X-ers. We were pretty darn aimless too, in our teenage years, but we tried, I think, to make a show of having big plans. Which kinda led to us thinking about big plans, too, and though we don't have anything to show for it now, it worked out all right. Hmm.

I think the best 'generation', by far, was the late baby-boomer era, aka the swingin 60's and 70's. They had purpose (albeit a frivolous one: 'be different')... they had a life. They had dreams and they were so enthusiastic about getting there. What a youth they must have had. I don't envy them the drugs, but I definitely envy them the freedom.

But then again, look what they've become today. Effing George W. Bush's, the lot of them - anal retentive to the point of ludicrity, Establishment to the core. Ban this, ban that, keep the homos out and the church in; let's all put on out aprons and caps and play 'Nanny'. Sold their souls, the bastards. I think we X-ers will do much better, we have common sense.

And as for the Y-ers and, heaven forbid, the millennials - who knows?

Related: Sushil posted on the Youth Of Today sometime back, too.

Bangkok

Tomorrow. I promise.

Screwed Over and Out

Three more people have been added to my list of people I'd shoot if I could lay my hands on a suitable firearm (the list so far: Govinda, Whoopi Goldberg, Johnny Lever) :
1. Peejay Garcia
2. Mdm Piyanar
3. Logan

These are the adjudicators who have cost my team the Asians. We didn't break, guys, because these &^*&^-ed up people are so *^&*^-ing biased they wouldn't &%^&%-ing admit that the Taj Mahal was built of marble unless a *^&*^-ing Mayasian team told them so.

Anyway. My guitar, if I had one, would weep more for NMK, Ani and Bankit more - they didn't break either. Sad.

On the plus side though, our adjudicators have done superbly well, all four of them breaking through to the Octos. We have big hopes for them.. I'm sure we'll see at least one of them in the panel that will form the finals. Way to go dudes!

Meanwhile, I busy myself with shopping, bitching about MMU and *^*^-ing Malaysian and other adjudicators, and dreaming of Shrek 2.

Which, people, is a wonderful movie. Go watch!

Sawadi kaa

Hola from Bangkok, and apologies for the mixed metaphor. Having a ball here - arguing to my heart's content without hearing the derogatorily hissed "Debater!" from my listeners and fellow-arguers; reading up, sleeping early, bithing about crappy food and even crappier adjudication.

Anyway. We're on 2-1 right now, all the NTU teams, at the end of the first debate on the second day. Five more debates to go. Wish us luck!

I said it first

Dave Barry uses my patented insult on which to base an entire column! Vindicated at last!

Bangkok

Any suggestions for sightseeing in and around Bangkok?

Guess what?

My template has changed! That's right... look closely and you'll notice the numerous differences in colour scheme, design and fonts. How do you like it?

This, BTW, is more proof of what inane stuff people get up to when they have too much reading up to do. Don't get me wrong. Debating is totally interesting. But nothing is ever so interesting that I can gladly read about it all day, then discuss it with well-meaning teammates and debate friends, and then frickin' dream about trying to convince LKY to go on a mission with me to rescue Aung San Suu Kyi.

Hope you guys have more of a life..

Fic Recs

New on 12 Nov '04

Elsha's Stories - featuring Theodore Nott and a brilliant OC Anne Fairleigh, Elsha's series of stories (Distractions, Discussions, Discoveries, Distinctions, Disadvantages and Disavowals) is by far the best I've read to date in fanfic. This is saying something when you consider FernWithy, Samvimes and the other masters out there... but the elegance of these stories sets them apart. Here, finally, is a series that handles romance as if it were Rowling herself who was writing it (and perhaps better!), that handles issues of family loyalty, principles and choosing sides delicately and with great depth. What I like best about this is that in Theodore Nott, I see the man Severus Snape might have become if he had had someone to turn to. It blows me away.

New on 17 August 2004

It's Not Personal

This is one of those fics that defy you to point out what exactly makes them superlative. It's really funny, the characters are real, and it even has a nice point. But what elevates it to the really cool fic it is? I don't quite know. Guess you'll just have to read it.

New on 9 August '04:

Fernwithy's Humungous Bighead Site - She has her finger on the pulse of the HP universe as no one (bar JKR) does. The one-offs are unbelievable, the writing outstanding. I have more favourite fics by this author than anyone else.

Mosylu's Fanfic - A woman after my own heart. Writes superbly plotted one-shots with dialogue par excellence. My absolute favourites are "The Dare", "Friends" and the work in progress "Post Mortem".

Samvimes's Oojahs - arguably the best writer in all of fandom. I envy him everything: his classical education, his way with words, his endless inventiveness and his ability to weave a plot out of next to nothing, all of which he uses to lethal effect. My favourite has to be Acts Infernal, which I have recommended before, and Anywhere But Here. Read at your own risk.

New on 21 June '04:

A Fair Fellowship of Young Squires by After The Rain

A beautifully told tale of an unlikely storyteller who touches the hearts of a group of youngsters.

New on 15 May '04:

PS..

Thistlerose's story stands out from all those sappy post-OotP grieving-Harry fics. Very sweet.

Moon and Stone

Nice, fluffy series with decent amount of substance and great characterisations. Chronicles of the first werewolf at Hogwarts.

The Rocky Road to Rosier

The best Moody fic ever, and an excellent one in its own right.

Andrea 13's Thinking Cap stories

Waste of your life if you haven't read these yet.


...........................................................................

The Doll Army

6 year old Dora Tonks wants an army to help her feel safe. Enter Messrs. Moony, Padfoot and Wormtail, her knights in messy clothes. Fernwithy's story is one of the best pieces of writing I've ever read.

Acts Infernal

Step into Dante's Inferno with Harry in this beautifully written and marvellously researched novella-length fic by Samvimes.

Of A Sort

Vignettes featuring some of our favourite characters' sortings. Another of Fernwithy's gems - especially the first chapter, and the one of Ted Tonks.

Moondance

Moony wakes up after a transformation gone wild and finds himself in the company of a little... muggle werewolf? This lovingly crafted story will tease emotions out of you that you never knew you had.

Transformations I: The Year Of Living Differently

Why did Snape decide to spy for Dumbledore? Finally, a well told tale answers by keeping Snape in character - for completely logical reasons.

Darkness Dying

Iniga's masterpiece tells of the events leading up to Voldemort's first downfall. This one was the first, the others just followed.

Disenchanted

A post CoS Ginny talks to a rare, rare thing in fanfic - a believable Dumbledore.

He Ain't Incoherent...

...He's My Brother. And you thought you knew all about Giants.

And The Hat Said 'Gryffindor'

It's hard to do a good Hagrid. Even JKR's slipping. This one, though, is a beauty.

Down From The Tree: Consequences

The missing Padfoot-Dumbledore scene from the end of PoA that weaves in and out of a certain Prank in the past.

Interwoven

A must for any Padfoot fangurl. Me, I'm saving myself for Remus.

Lines Of Descent

Who was the werewolf that bit Moony?

Down From The Tree: Actions

The author says: "If you don't want Snape to take over, just don't write him at all. I don't know how JKR gets him to shut up."

The Snape Who (Almost) Stole Christmas

The only poem fic I've ever liked... and boy did I like it! I sing it under my breath to my own tune all the time.

What would you see?

.. if you looked in the Mirror of Erised? The first chapter is simply brilliant.

After the End

One of the old classics, now my refuge when I'm in denial about Padfoot. Wonderful writing, great plot, loads of goo.

Denizen of the Deep

Dennis Creevy and the Giant Squid. If that doesn't grab you, I don't know what will.

Gone Oredi

Due to my current depressing, stupid shitty overwhelming workload, and then my big ballywallahoo trip to Bangkok for the Asians and a quick break, this blog will remain inactive till 30 May.

Have fun in your respective lives.

Thought

From Sushil's Comm Skills text book, section entitled How to ace your interview: "Display a genuine smile on your face."

I'm not even going to begin to talk about the use of the word "display" and the phrase "on your face". But I did start thinking about 'genuine' smiles. I didn't know there could be artificial ones. Like, artificial flowers aren't really flowers, right. But smiles can't NOT be smiles. You're moving those lip and cheek muscles and all. But then I realised there are artificial smiles.

It's when you're not really smiling, but you type a smiley-face into your MSN conversation or your e-mail.

3 Questions

... that Ashwin and Divya asked are answered in this post. Long, but read the answer to the first question at least. It's one of Rand's finest pieces of writing, and its impact is tremendous.

1. What's the definition of "living as a human being"?

I quote from Atlas Shrugged (Part III Chapter VII, "This is John Galt Speaking") :

"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch - or build a cyclotron - without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.

"But to think is an act of choice. The key to what you ... call 'human nature' ... is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival - so that for you, who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be' is the question 'to think or not to think.'

"A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. 'Value' is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue' is the action by which one gains and keeps it. 'Value' presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value' presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible.

"There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. ... It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.

"A plant must feed itself in order to live; ... [it] has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.

"An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil. It has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In conditions where its knowledge proves inadequate, it dies. But so long as it lives, it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.

"Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. ... An 'instinct' is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic: ... fear of death is not a love for life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer. ...

"A living entity that regarded its means of survival as evil, would not survive. A plant that struggled to mangle its roots, a bird that fought to break its wings would not remain for long in the existence they affronted. But the history of man has been a struggle to deny and to destroy his mind.
"Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice - and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal, Man has to be man - by choice; he has to hold his life as a value - by choice; he has to learn to sustain it - by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues - by choice.

"A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

"There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man's Life is its standard of value.

"All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.

"Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being - not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement - not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason.

"Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man - for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life.

"Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it."

2. In choosing people to love or make friends with, what percentage of a values-match is enough to rationalise the frienship? What if I adopt a child and love it despite the fact that the child brings me no emotional solace (i.e. the child doesn't love me) ?

As for the first question, simple enough. The extent to which you share values with a person determines the extent to which you love them and respect them. This, of course, is only applicable if you yourself have a rational set of values; otherwise the whole thing gets quite messed up. Self esteem depends on how much integrity you consider yourself to have, and if you serve an irrational code of values (see altruism below), you'll never be able to achieve anything close to your ideal, because your values contradict each other. So you'll probably end up with low self esteem: envying people of fine character, mixing with those like yourself whilst secretly holding them in contempt.

"Values" are fundamental values that a person truly holds: not values a person professes to have, not even the values one desires to have, but those which a person confesses to having through her actions. So if you have friends who supposedly believe in some religion and its teachings (say, Buddhism) but in real life do NOT practice its teachings (they don't work towards giving up their desires, don't take too many concrete steps to avoid evil materialistic pursuits, etc) they're hardly Buddhist, are they. Their true values would be much the same of any young person you will meet today in urban societies - more or less individualistic and liberal, with personal success being top on their list of priorities. So check again: how many people do you really know who have very different values from the ones you do? Chances are, not many. Because if their values were truly different, you'd probably not even come across them in the course of your daily life.

As for adopting a child - I should first say Rand said very little about children and parenting, so what I say here is an extrapolation of the ideas in her philosophy. Choosing whether or not to adopt a child is a morally neutral decision, because we are dealing with unknown quantities here and no value judgements are possible when values cannot be measured (or don't exist yet!). After you adopt a child, you will love him and try to inculcate him with the values you think are right - and if you're a better parent, simply allow the child to rationalise through his own observations and come to his own comclusions, making sure only to provide an environment in which honesty and reason are of supreme importance. As a parent, what you owe the child as he is growing up is sustainance, care and this environment. For most people, love also plays a huge part.

If the child grows up to be someone you respect and someone you share important values with, you love him. If the child grows up to be someone whose morals are mixed up, you cannot rationally love him. That's all there is to it. There is no such thing as a rational 'automatic' love for relatives - especially after they are grown up and are adults.

3. If I want to support someone for no other reason other than it makes me feel big and generous and stokes my ego, am I a moral person?

According to Objectivism, altruism is evil; but note carefully the exact meaning of altruism - to give up or give away something valuable when there is no value to be gained in return (you have no "ulterior motive" for doing this good deed.) The only kind of giving that is moral is when you simply wish to give out of benevolence and it involves no sacrifice on your part. Ayn Rand said many times that charity was fine as long as it does not get turned into a duty; that it was good thing but not a 'primary virtue'. When something is a fundamental moral or value, not practicing it makes you necessarily immoral. Not so with things that are simply 'good', like reading or being interested in music.

Analyse this closer: why is it that you feel like a big person when you provide for someone? It's one of two things: either you have truly accepted the philosophy of altruism, and believe that giving is the supreme good and should be everyone's ultimate goal; or else you want *others* to respect you as a generous person.

I'll handle the latter case first because it's faster: if you're the sort of person who derives her self-worth from what others believe, you're not much of a person, are you? It's what Rand calls a 'second-hand' existance - you don't *really* care if you are generous, you only want others to think so. If you had the opportunity to make a confidential donation somewhere, you wouldn't take it. Simply put, you're a fake.

But what if you really are 'daan shur vir Karna'? Ever analysed what it is that makes you believe sacrifice is the highest level of morality that can be achieved? It's been drummed into us, you know, through religion, the media, Mother Theresa and what not - constant onslaught from all sides that we must give up for the sake of the next person, that giving is the only virtue, that to want something for ourselves if evil and selfish.

In 'The Fountainhead', a character called Ellsworth Toohey says: "It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master."

Responsibility and morality

Sushil has a question: Why is a person who depends on another to survive less moral than one who is independent, given that
(a) the dependent is not unable to work but rather, unwilling and
(b) there is no element of coersion involved, the supporter is happy to keep the dependent alive.

The answer goes to the heart of Objectivism and touches nearly every fundamental aspect of it.

First, a definition of morality. It's very simple: whatever principle or course of action allows man to survive as a human being is moral. Of course, the key term is "survive as a human being" - as opposed to surviving in a brute-force, animalistic sort of way. The difference is that human beings survive through the use of their rational faculties - unlike in animals, human beings have a choice whether they wish to survive or not, and they have to make a conscious choice using their minds. The choices we make are rational or irrational depending on whether they lead to the survival of man as a human being or the destruction of man as a human being. Rationality means taking your whole life as a context for your decisions, rather than just the expediency of the moment or choosing that which gives you momentry pleasure but is ultimately destructive. Working to survive and serve your values is moral and rational, working to self-destruct is immoral and irrational. The extent to which we are rational, therefore, is the extent to which we are moral.

So then it follows that a producer who is able to survive through his own effort is more moral than a person who is dependent on someone else, because the producer rationally realises that his best chance of surviving as a human being is to be responsible for himself. The dependent guy chooses the momentary 'pleasure' of not doing anything productive over long-term stability and assurance of survival by counting on someone else to take care of him. (The reason why he cannot have a reasonable expectation of an assured future is that he can't morally expect the producer to proviode for him forever - we can't have the producer being forced to support someone he doesn't want to. So any time the producer changes his mind about supporting him, he (the dependent) is gone oredi.)

QED. Producer is more moral than dependent.

But Objectivism would also pass an unfavourable judgement about the producer who is willing to support the lazy dependent, because it would seem that the producer is serving irrational values by doing this.

The producer is giving up something that is of some value to himself (food, money). The only moral context in which one should give up something that is of value is when one is getting something of an equal or greater value in return. Value, of course, is subjective - a value exists only in the context of individuals. So the producer, in this case, values the survival of a lazy guy at the expense of his own hard earned money.

Why so? The only case in which this would be moral would be when the dependent is of great intrinsic value to the producer - there's love and caring and friendship or whatever involved. If it's a random stranger, the producer is doing something very immoral, because he's choosing to support this lazy bum over some honestly unfortunate and deserving chap. The producer is endorsing the bum's values and ethics (living off people, not producing, irrationality) over the ethics of, say, a paraplegic who *wants* to do all she can to survive, but can't. It's wrong to reward bad values.

So now we're down to the case of the dependent being of value to the producer. Now according to Objectivism, the choices we make in love and friendship also ought to be guided by rationality. It's morally wrong to love everyone regardless of who they are and what their values are - that's the same as rewarding bad values. Our choices in love and friendship ought to be guided by what values we hold dear; someone with values diametrically opposite to our own cannot be worthy of our love and respect. ('Values' in this context means fundamental principles like honesty, loyalty etc rather than stuff like favourite colours and food, which are morally neutral things.)

Since the producer's values are obviously diametrically opposite to that of the dependent, if the former still professes to love the latter, then the producer is guilty of loving irrationally. Now, I know the media really romanticises the concept of loving people without a thought to reason - but think about it. Isn't that worse than crazy - isn't it evil? "I don't care who you are, where you're from, what you do - as long as you love me" - it's an immoral ethic. Who a person is - their values - and what a person does - their actions - MATTER. These are the things that ought to guide us in making the choices of who we love.

Anyways. Shusheee, I hope that answers your question. Whew.