My Top Shelf

If a free man cannot accept dictatorship and a commanded code of ethics, how does one know what is right and what is wrong? As has already been said, because a proper code is necessary if man is to live a successful life on Earth, man’s life is the standard upon which that code is based. What is right supports my life. What is evil destroys it.

How to develop a rational moral code?

Step 1: Develop a rational hierarchy of values.

I am my number one value. Everything that I am—my every thought, memory, dream, and ambition—lives between my ears. I am my brain and my brain will not function properly under any kind of compulsion. My liberty and my life are two sides of the same coin. But there's more.

Because I have to look in the mirror every day and like what I see, the definition of my life also includes a profound respect for the truth. To deny or compromise the truth is to sacrifice my integrity. This would be destructive to my life. Integrity, therefore, is a top-tier value.

Every year I ask my students to describe what they think Heaven would be like. They never mention going to work or doing anything productive. I ask them: Wouldn’t I have to go to work in your Heaven? Invariably they say no…that there’s no working in Heaven. It is then that I tell them that their Heaven would be my Hell! I explain how my work, my productivity, is as important to my life as food and shelter. What good is my life and liberty if I am not free to pursue my happiness, to produce, to create, to achieve my self-esteem? A sedentary existence in some Paradise, no matter how many virgins I get, would be destructive to my life. My work is a top-tier value.

On my top shelf stand the values I will defend with my life. I would fight to the death to defend my life, my liberty, my integrity, my self-esteem. Still, I am not finished.

I am a father. I will protect and defend my children with my life, not because I have any desire to take a bullet, cease to exist, or be called “hero,” but because I can’t imagine waking up tomorrow without any one them if there is something I can do about it. So, for purely selfish reasons, if I have to choose between my heartbeat and any one of theirs, I’m toast.

I’ve been a husband more than once, so I know it may not always be advisable to place one’s spouse on one’s top shelf. I don’t think my first wife ever made it to my top shelf; however, I can’t imagine that I would have used her as a human shield in the event we were being mugged by an armed thug. I probably would have thoughtlessly taken the bullet [at the time]. She was, after all, the mother of my only son.

My current and final wife, L, was very much distressed a few years back when I told her that for the first few years of our marriage she was not on my top shelf. She couldn’t have been. I’d been married before. I knew marriage isn’t always forever. Besides, I had my son to care for. I could not take a bullet for her. I’d be abandoning my son, sacrificing a top-tier value. That would be irrational, destructive to my life. When L gave birth to my first daughter, when she became a loving parent to my son, she joined me on my top shelf.

And that’s it. That’s my Top Shelf. These are all the values I might have to kill for or die defending. Are you, my dear friends and family, not on my top shelf? Would you like to know why?