A lecture

Apparently, now that he’s done a few frolics on the grass, Samuel has learned the word “outside.” I haven’t heard him use it; but my cousin Vickie did, this afternoon, while she was looking after him.

It was the first time in months that both parents were away from him. (He did just fine.)

I was delivering one of two guest lectures in my Uncle Tim’s ethics class, on the topic of “political authority.” (Is the state a justifiable institution? What, if anything, makes it our duty to obey its laws?) It was the first college class I’d taught since 2016 – and the first philosophy class since 2013.

Will these lectures be my swan song as a teacher?

I wonder.

To prepare for today’s installment, I read well over a hundred new pages – and two or three dozen judiciously chosen old ones – and I wrote a seven-page handout for the COVID absentees. Is it unbecoming to say that, sometimes, I work pretty hard?