A Life Lived Close to the Code is Good

I get to work earlier than most, stay later, and generally operate at a fairly high energy level due to a massive intake of coffee. One day, sufficiently long enough ago that anonymity can be preserved, I was in an office kitchen making a pot of African Mad Dance, when a fellow worker came in and glowered at me: "Why are you always so damn happy?!"

Without thinking, I replied: "Pretty simple: I live very close to my moral code."

And that was it.

She stomped out, and I poured a big Cup of Hope. I was not tring to serve up a barb to her of all people -- I had just been thinking about the nature of happiness and unhappiness, and she had actually broached the subject I had been thinking about. Bad timing!

Several months later, I met her on the elevator as she was leaving work, and she was palming a 24-hour chip from Alcoholics Anonymous. I acted as if I had not noticed, but I was very happy for her.
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