I have no doubt that I will someday regret giving you the advice I’m about to give you, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. That’s because like all the shit I’ve included so far, it’s important, and I want to make sure you know it.
This advice is about rules.
Some rules are good, and should be followed.
Some rules are okay, and can be bent.
Some rules are bad, either for being unjust or for being stupid, and depending on the consequences and the nature of the rule, deserve your ire, to be broken, or at the very least, followed with extreme disdain.
The hard part is figuring out which rules are which.
Side note: All laws are rules, but not all rules are laws. “Don’t pee into the wind” is a good rule of thumb, while “don’t pee in public” is a law against public indecency. Break the first at your own risk. Breaking the second usually carries formal penalties beyond pee on your shoes.
My hope is that you gain the wisdom necessary to tell one kind of rule from another; you can’t just classify all the rules you don’t like as “bad” and ignore them. Well, you could, but that’s a surefire path to having shitty face tattoos and spending years in a room with bars wearing an orange jumpsuit.
Assuming you enjoy seeing the sky and picking out your own clothes, how do you learn which rules are which? There’s the easy way, where you pay close attention to the things your Mom and I tell you, learn from our mistakes, and don’t make the ones we already made. We’ll help you figure out which rules are really important and which ones are bullshit.
And there’s the way you’ll probably do it, which is how I did it, and also how most people do it: by trial and error. This will involve a considerable amout of pain and suffering, both for you, me, and your Mom, but I’m pretty sure it’s a part of growing up. And don’t feel bad for thinking I don’t know what I’m talking about; I hear most children believe their parents to be idiots.
Nonetheless, until you’ve become wise enough to tell one kind of rule from another, your Mom and I will let you know when you break a rule that is good and should be followed. But, as with the rest of what I’ve written, the advice below should serve as guidance in my absence.
Let’s start with the good rules. The ones that make sense, and should be followed, both by you, and by everyone else. I’d put six of the Ten Commandments into this category: Don’t murder, don’t adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, and don’t covet. You’d do well to also honor your father and mother, and your father and mother would sure appreciate it. As for the other commandments, I’d put them in the “okay” category. If you’re into religion, they’re for you. If not, then not so much.
The six I mentioned are good rules and should be followed for a couple reasons.
First, a few of them are codified into actual laws in our society, meaning that we’ve all agreed to follow them for the common good, and have empowered police to catch people breaking them. Get caught breaking laws and you get punished with fines, jail time, or even (in some states) death.
Second, you can apply reason to them and see why they’re good rules. For example, committing adultery (as in cheating on your spouse) makes for an unhappy marriage, which makes for an unhappy life, and/or a divorce. These are not desirable outcomes. And while there’s no law against coveting or lying, you’ll live a much happier life if you covet and lie as little as possible. We all lie sometimes. (No, you don’t look fat — Yes, this is delicious — Of course I want to watch another nature show instead of the baseball game.)
Finally, good rules stand up to moral litmus tests. I like Immanuel Kant’s formula of universal law, (asking what would happen if everyone took the action you’re about to take all the time), but countless philosophers have spent countless hours contemplating their navels, morality, rules of society, and which ones are good and bad. Learning about them and their perspectives is a good idea. I should know; I took Intro to Philosophy three different times.
On to rules that are okay, and can be bent. Breaking these rules may get you in some trouble, but the trouble is either minor enough that you simply accept it as a necessary cost of breaking the rule, or you’ll get caught so infrequently that it’s worth rolling the dice. That doesn’t mean a rule’s validity should be determined by its consequences; no one’s going to arrest you for littering, but it’s still a shitty thing to do.
Still, consider the validity and the reasoning of the rule before breaking it. You can probably cheat on your taxes without getting caught and certainly ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet; that doesn’t make doing either a good idea, or even okay.
The speed limit and legal drinking age are two examples of okay rules that almost everyone breaks, within reason. You’ll find the birth of both rules interesting (Nationwide Speed Limit, Legal drinking age of 21) and I encourage you to look them up. Regardless, most people drive a little bit over the speed limit and start drinking alcohol a little before their 21st birthday. Which is okay, as long as it’s within reason. Drive a hundred over the speed limit and you might kill someone (including yourself.) Same goes for giving your four-year-old Jaeger shots.
Breaking these “okay” rules also means accepting consequences when you get caught. I’ve paid plenty of speeding tickets and while I wasn’t ever arrested for underage drinking, I have been punished for it. When you decide a rule is okay but choose to break it, you might suffer for that decision.
E.g., skipping school for a good reason: I played in a rival high school’s jazz ensemble because my school didn’t have one. That ensemble took a trip to Disney World to play in a contest, and I went on that trip. It meant missing classes at my school, and I was punished. My principal called it an “unexcused absence.” That punishment was fair, I had missed school, and not for an official school activity. Well, not an official “my school” activity. Still, it was totally worth it, and in hindsight I think I made a good choice.
Finally, there are bad rules. They can be either unjust, stupid, or both. The morality tests I mentioned before, when paired with careful use of your brain, can help you identify rules that suck.
Let’s start with stupid rules. Example: the Y where we belong makes everyone get out of the indoor pool when it’s lightning outside. Despite there having never been a recorded death from lightning hitting the ground outside and electrocuting people swimming in an indoor pool, everyone must exit the pool for 30 minutes any time there’s a lightning strike within three counties of our YMCA. It frustrates me to no end, but as stupid as that rule is, the only thing I can do about it is join another pool.
When I asked the Y management why the rule existed, they told me it was an insurance requirement. When you ask about rules that seem dumb, you’ll sometimes run into people who say, “that’s the rule because that’s the rule.” The existence of the rule becomes more important than the validity of the rule. Don’t be one of these people. Ask questions. To quote Sturgill Simpson.
“If there's any doubt, then there is no doubt, The gut don't never lie...And the only word you'll ever need to know in life is why.”
Unfortunately, sometimes, you can’t do anything about stupid rules, no matter how stupid they seem.
Swimming in the pool after I’ve been told to get out might mean losing our Y membership. Other than the lightning policy, I really like this Y, the staff, and its location five minutes from our house. I usually just grumble around after I’ve been forced out of the pool, telling anyone nearby that we’re not in any real danger. Maybe I should pack a change of clothes when it looks like lightning so I have the option of running on a treadmill instead.
On to unjust rules. What’s makes a rule unjust? Ask yourself if the rule is fair? Is there good logic and reasoning behind it? Does it screw over one particular group of people? For example, segregation and Jim Crow were the rule of law for a long time, but are unjust. There were once rules that prevented women from voting. Unjust. And some states have laws against sodomy. Asinine.
People broke those laws intentionally to point out how unfair they were, and they were eventually repealed, but not before those people spent time in jail for their protests.
What should you do about unjust laws? Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thomas Jefferson believed you’re obliged to break them. King said, “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’” And Jefferson said, “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." I wonder what King and Jefferson would say about laws against sodomy, and if one of them would take it up the butt in the name of justice.
Butt jokes aside, I agree with the sentiment and their positions. Beyond just disobeying unjust rules, you can and should take other actions against them, both directly and indirectly. You can vote for representatives that will help change these rules, you can get involved with or donate to organizations that will fight these rules, and you can choose to spend your dollars at companies that share your views on these rules. You can also choose direct action against unjust rules by contacting your elected representatives, protesting, speaking out, or simply refusing to follow them. I hope you have the courage of your convictions and are strong enough to stand for justice, especially in the face of rules that are unfair and unjust.
My hope is that you learn to question things, or rather, that you continue to ask questions like four-year-old you does, constantly seeking to understand “why?” Because not all rules are good, and not all rules are smart. Follow the good ones, bend the okay ones, and don’t be afraid to shit all over the unjust and stupid rules along with anyone who tell you to follow them just because they exist.
I love you,
Dad
Of note: I set out to write 52 of these, and this is my 51st. Thanks to any of you who’ve been reading along with me through all of them. Be on the look out for the 52nd and final blog coming soon!
I originally planned to finish this series in twelve months, intending to write one entry a week for 52 weeks. But, other things came up and I didn’t have as much time as I thought I would. We moved, you started a new school, I had other projects, etc. But finally, I’m starting my last entry in September, nine months after I’d planned. Which is the perfect intro to this one.
Time is funny like that. It marches on like a metronome, indifferent to how much you wish it would slow down or speed up. It offers no do-overs, no matter how frivolously you spend it. And it gives zero fucks what you planned to accomplish in the time you had. Once that time is over, you’ll get no more. But, it also stretches out ahead of you into an unknown future, offering untold possibility and infinite choices.
Which is why I hope you both learn to make choices about how you spend your time and understand what those choices mean. Because while there’s never enough time for everything, there’s still enough time to do almost anything.