The Amoral of the Story

"I don't believe in anything," a colleague once told me.

I didn't believe him.

"I'm serious. I don't. When I sit down and try to decide what I believe ... there's nothing," he said. "It's hard to decide on anything."

"Of course, because that means you have to commit yourself."

"That's right. And what if you find out you were wrong?" he said. "What if you live your whole life and ..."

"You can always change your mind," I said.

I'm afraid that was a little too blithe for my coworker, though.

"What about after the Spanish Inquisition, after you've burned all these people at the stake? What do you say then: 'Oh, we changed our minds'?"

"Never mind," I said, in the sort of pinched, old-woman voice you hear in Monty Python reruns.

"You've got all these crispy critters on your hands," he said.

An important point about the dangers of belief, I suppose, but far removed from any choice we would have to make that day.

Soon the conversation shifted and my colleague started telling me about something he'd seen on TV — an interview with a mass murderer, long imprisoned.

(I say colleague rather than a friend because Pete made it quite clear that he didn't like me. He once called me pious, and he didn't mean it as a complement. I pray to God I don't sound pious now.)

I had missed the interview (intentionally) but wondered what Pete thought.

"He was really bizarre. He was ... well, he was completely amoral."

"Kind of like you, huh?"

"No, Al."

"Well, you don't believe in anything. Isn't that what amoral is?"

"It's not the same thing," he said.

"I think you believe in more than you know."