How I Became Amoral
When I was 9 years old, I lived in an apartment complex at the edge of a small town. Behind the complex, there were hills covered with bunchgrass, sagebrush and a few old ponderosa pines. In those days, kids ran wild from dawn to dusk. We rode around on our bikes, played games, went exploring in the hills, etc. In the process, we learned about life. In the summer, there were lots of grasshoppers. They would often lay their eggs in cracks in the road. I would sometimes kneel on the road and watch them pumping their eggs into those cracks, oblivious to my presence. Once a female grasshopper is committed to laying her eggs, she stays there until the job is done. I have always been close to nature. I spent much of my time as a kid outdoors, exploring the landscape and observing plants and animals. I found those grasshoppers interesting for their own sake. But the other kids in the apartment complex enjoyed killing them. They made a game out of running over the grasshoppers with the