I completely agree with everything Eva Wiseman says on this hilarious and smart newsletter. I think that as much as we try to make ourselves better and as much as we promise ourselves that “I’m still a good person”, we need to realise that we’re still pretty shitty. I eat meat, I take a lot of baths, and I do the things that I blame everybody else for. Yet, I still say I am a good person. So, is it impossible to live ethically? Well, it depends on what you define as ethical. If being pretty nice to people and doing a good thing every once in a while is what you count as being ethical, then that’s pretty easy to achieve. But, if you think that everything you have to do is perfect, chances are, and unless you are Jesus’ reincarnation, that isn’t going to happen. I really like Wiseman’s thought that “when I see people trying to be better – when I have lunch with Becca, with her peanut noodles and fishless fingers – I feel a silent judgment.”. I think that’s the self-loathing in all of us, the one that tells us we need to better and for me, eat less meat.
So do I live ethically? Hell no. Absolutely not. But, I think I’m a pretty happy person. And I enjoy about 98% percent of my life. So, if I just do a little bit more kind things, maybe donate to charity a little bit (thing is about that, I might not even do it because I know I should, it’s because I feel I should) I’ll be okay.
