abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect

1 Would you like to have a high-definition nude image of yourself in your physical prime? 

    absolutely

 

2 In what period since you were a teenager did you have the most personal growth and change? 

    the four years around the divorce. Physically, emotionally, practically, sexually, financially, socially, professionally....

    If you wanted to have another such period, what could you do to bring it about or otherwise shake up your life? 

    good question, since that span of time and change was hardly part of some master plan. I suppose I'd need to stick a fork in my primary social relationship, destroy my parents' faith, alienate a bunch of friends (or, to be fair, people I thought were my friends), take a new job, move house at least 3 times, spontaneously become involved with someone 8 years and a million miles from my emotional location, lose roughly 1/4 of my body weight, annihilate my financial security, and make a bunch of foolish, short term choices with long-term effects.

 

3 What are the most important things (excluding children) you've brought into the world that would not exist without you? 

    21+ years of this blog, a handful of other writing, and some old-style mix CDs

 

4 Would you commit perjury for a close friend? For example, might you testify that your best friend was driving carefully when he hit a pedestrian even though he actually was laughing at something on the radio and not paying attention? 

    yes, but not for something that blatantly dumb. Those for whom I can imagine doing such a thing are grown-ups who wouldn't fuck up that badly and expect someone else to pull their bacon out of the fire. 

    To be fair, there's really only one person for whom this could become realistic, and I've already lied for them a thousand times before. What's one more?

 

 [from The Book of Questions; the title quotation is by Bertrand Russell, and reads in its entirety as follows.]

If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind, generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of taboo morality, and has done untold harm.