If you're honest, you sooner or later have to confront your values. Then you're forced to separate what is right from what is merely legal. This puts you metaphysically on the run. America is full of metaphysical outlaws.
So I don't intend for this to be my blog on "being an outlaw," but I am obsessed with Tom Robbins' conception thereof right now, so I figured I'd run with it. All quotations from his
Still Life With Woodpecker one of my many favorites of his, I love this one as it points to the universal outlaw in us all.
We all know there are places where the laws deviate from our moral compass. There are the silly ethical questions of throwing a person in front of a train to save ten, but he's a Nobel prize winner... or the notion of stealing in order to save someone's life. Laws and morals are rarely equivocated and that's with good reason, of course.
However, although I am enamoured with a good chunk of America this evening as Obama did indeed become president elect!, for the most part the other attributes of outlaws are rare among us. As I get into this further, I think you'll see why.
But for now, here's to the metaphysical outlaw. To the (wo)man who has the nerve and the curiosity to star in his own move
and direct it.
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