I’ve been staring at the same glass for hours now. The amber liquid sloshing around, the ice cubes bumping against the sides, making that soft clink that fills the silence just enough to make it worse.

It’s not that I’m avoiding the question—I’ve spent years wrestling with it, sitting on it, suffocating it under my own weight.

It’s just that some things don’t have an easy answer, and morality?

Well, that’s one of those things that twists like a knife in your gut.

Does objective morality allow for change?

That’s the question. The question that keeps me up late at night when the world’s asleep, and all I’ve got for company is a half-empty bottle of whiskey and the crushing weight of my own thoughts.

And here’s the thing—I always thought it was simple. I was one of those naive assholes who thought objective morality was a solid rock, a foundation you could build your life on, like some ancient temple built to withstand the gods themselves.

Something unshakeable, something that didn’t give a damn about the tides of time or the moods of men.

But now?

Now I’m not so sure. I’ve read the books, sure. Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard—hell, I’ve even had my fingers stained by the ink of Sartre.

All these guys told me that morality, if it exists at all, can’t be something that simply exists to placate the fragile minds of human beings.

It has to be something bigger. Universal. Eternal. Like gravity or the cold bite of death itself.

But what if that’s bullshit?

What if that’s just some comforting lie we tell ourselves to avoid confronting the reality that maybe, just maybe, morality isn’t as fixed as we think it is?

The Illusion of Objective Morality: Is It Just a Damn Con?

When I was younger, I thought there were some things you could count on in life.

You know, like the fact that the sun will rise every morning, or that you can always trust your dog more than your best friend, or that a glass of bourbon at the end of a shitty day would bring a fleeting moment of peace.

And I thought morality was one of those constants.

If you believed in objective morality, you believed there were facts—like the fact that murder is wrong, that lying to get what you want is a scumbag move, that helping others is generally a good idea.

But here’s where things get weird. What if those facts aren’t as rock-solid as we’ve been led to believe?

What if they’re more like sand, shifting and eroding, adapting to the whims of time, culture, and circumstance?

Hell, what if time itself changes what’s considered right or wrong?

Take utilitarianism, for example. Sounds pretty straightforward at first, right?

The idea that the right thing to do is the one that brings the most happiness to the most people.

Seems simple enough—maximize pleasure, minimize pain. But then I started to think about it.

What if the world changes? What if the conditions that made sense in one time period no longer apply in another?

In 500 BC, you’ve got a famine, and your village is starving. You have to leave or die. The elderly, the sick, they’ll slow you down.

And so, you make a decision—maybe you leave them behind. You don’t want to, but if you want to save the rest of the people, you’ve got to make the choice. And hell, if it means less pain and suffering for the group as a whole, maybe that’s the right thing to do.

But fast-forward to 2024, and things have changed. You’ve got modern medicine, technology, resources you didn’t have back then.

You can care for the elderly, you can help the sick, and you can still keep the rest of society running. So, should you leave them behind now?

Hell no. The cost is not nearly as high. The moral choice shifts.

Same principle—maximize happiness, minimize suffering—but what that looks like has changed completely.

And so, here I am, staring into my glass, wondering if we’ve been living under some delusion that moral truths are unchanging, carved into stone somewhere high in the heavens.

What if they’re not? What if we’ve been wrong all along? What if, just like everything else in this godforsaken world, morality changes?

Evolves. Adapts.

The Trap of Cultural Context

I used to think that right and wrong were just black-and-white—either something was good or it wasn’t, period.

But then I started to consider context—cultural context, to be precise. And, hell, when you start looking at things through that lens, you realize that the moral compass is a lot more like a weather vane—it moves with the wind.

Take two countries, A and B, both with their own distinct cultural codes.

In country A, it’s considered offensive to bring a hungry friend into your home. It’s a social faux pas, like rubbing salt in a wound. You don’t want to make your friend feel ashamed for needing your help.

In country B, it’s the opposite. If you don’t invite your friend over and offer them food, you’re seen as cold, uncaring, and indifferent. The moral principle in both places is the same—help a friend in need.

But how you go about doing that changes completely depending on where you are.

The principle’s still there. But the action—the way morality is applied—isn’t. It shifts, like the wind, depending on the environment.

And that’s the rub, isn’t it? Morality changes, but it doesn’t mean the underlying principle changes.

It just means the way it plays out in real life gets reshuffled and redefined depending on time, culture, and circumstance.

Table 1: The Shifting Nature of Morality Across Contexts

Country	Moral Principle	Correct Action	Why It Changes
Country A	Help those in need	Do not bring your friend into your home	Avoiding social embarrassment & maintaining social norms
Country B	Help those in need	Invite your friend for dinner	Avoiding perceived coldness & social alienation

Talking to the Kid: Morality’s Adaptation

Let’s say I’m explaining this to a kid. A little guy or gal just trying to make sense of the world. You’ve got this toy, right? It’s a great toy. It’s the best toy. But after a while, you notice it’s not working as well as it used to.

The wheels are rusting, the button sticks. But does that mean the toy is still the best? Of course it is. But maybe it needs some fixing.

Maybe you need to adjust the way you play with it. Add some new pieces. Fix what’s broken.

That’s what happens with morality. It’s this thing that exists, but as we grow, as society grows, the way we play with it changes.

We don’t toss it out because it’s broken. We just… adjust it to fit the times. To make it work.

The Nihilistic Shadow: No Meaning, No Truth

Now, I’m not so naïve to think that everyone is on board with this. There’s the dark side of all this—nihilism.

The folks who don’t believe in any of this nonsense. They’d tell you that morality is just a human invention.

That we’ve been fooling ourselves all along, and that there is no right or wrong, no meaning, no purpose. Everything is just a cosmic accident, and we’re all just spinning on a ball of dust, trying to make sense of the noise in our heads.

And hell, part of me wonders if they’re right. Maybe morality is just a joke.

A sick, twisted joke that we tell ourselves to keep the darkness at bay.

Maybe there’s no truth, no meaning, no purpose. Maybe Hannibal Lecter had it right—kill or be killed, and it’s all just a dance with death in the end.

Table 2: Data from Opposing Views

Thinker	Viewpoint	Example	Why They Oppose Moral Change
Friedrich Nietzsche	Morality is a construct	“God is dead”	Believes morality is invented, not objective
Jean-Paul Sartre	Morality is subjective	Existentialism	No universal moral truth exists; humans create meaning
Ayn Rand	Objectivism (self-interest is key)	“The Fountainhead”	Morality should serve the individual’s self-interest

Let’s End With a Story

I’ve been sitting here, nursing my last drink, long enough that the ice has melted and the glass is just a shallow reminder of what once was.

The night is quiet, except for the occasional cough or murmur outside. There’s a strange comfort in the silence. You can’t hear the arguments in your head as loudly when the world is quiet.

You ever find yourself thinking about the things you should’ve said?

The words that could’ve shifted the trajectory of your life, or at least given you a taste of what might have been?

I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way, I became that guy—bitter, reeking of stale whiskey and disappointment, trying to hold onto something that doesn’t exist anymore.

I think about a time when I could’ve chosen something different, anything different.

Could’ve stepped out of this rut. But here I am, holding this glass, as if the amber liquid inside will suddenly make the answers clear.

Morality? It’s like trying to read a map of a city that’s been wiped off the face of the earth.

I remember one night, years ago. I was in the middle of some argument with a girl. She was the type of girl who would catch your attention just by walking into a room, and I thought I had her figured out. I thought I knew her like the back of my hand, but sometimes life has a way of humbling you when you get cocky.

She threw something at me that night. Not literally, but the words she said hit harder than anything physical could’ve.

“You think you know what’s right, don’t you? That you have the answers?” she said, her voice cracking under the weight of something I couldn’t understand at the time.

I shrugged it off. I always did. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. But then she hit me with something else. “You’re so busy talking about what’s right and wrong, you don’t see that we’re all just trying to get by. There is no answer, you know? No neat little box to put everything in.”

That’s the thing with moral absolutes. You keep thinking if you dig deep enough, you’ll find the right answer. But maybe the answer is just sitting there, right in front of you.

We split up that night, of course. She walked out, and I sat there with the same question lingering in my head, much like the one that’s been gnawing at me these past few years. It’s a question I can never quite get away from.

What’s the point? What are we even doing here?

The ice clinks in my glass again, like some sick cosmic joke.

And maybe she was right. Maybe there’s no clean-cut answer. Maybe I’ve been looking for a truth that doesn’t exist, a constant that was never meant to be.

So I pour myself another drink. It’s a hell of a way to escape the noise, but at least it’s something. Something to fill the space when the truth is too much to bear.

The glass is empty again. And I wonder—who the hell knows what’s right anymore?

All I know is, for the first time tonight, I’m not trying to find the answer.

I’m just going to sit here and let it be. Maybe that’s the closest we get to understanding anything.