So here we are – 2017. New adventures, new dangers, and everything in-between.
Hopefully, you had a wonderful New Year with those that matter the most to you, and you’re looking forward to a year that delivers as much as you wish it to.
This year, I’m personally looking to [hopefully] deliver more content to you that fosters deep discussion around central themes and topics, some of which will be morally ambiguous.
To kick things off, I’m curious how you’d decide who lives, and who dies if there were four options to choose from and you could only choose one.
If this is something you don’t wish to answer, I completely understand. It’s not exactly a cheery theme.
However, I don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable, so as I mention feel free to skip on leaving a comment with your answer if you wish.
If you do answer, just one “rule”: there are no right or wrong answers here. I’m honestly just curious as to who you’d choose, and why – there will be absolutely zero “judging” your response.
So, with that in mind, let’s jump in.
The Dilemma
You’re walking along an off-road path in an otherworldly land when you come across four towers. At the end of the path is a large sign, and at the bottom of each tower is a smaller sign. You approach to read the large one:
Each tower holds a person. Each tower will crumble to?the ground in less than five minutes. Your mission is to choose which one person lives, leaving the other three to crumble to their deaths. It is impossible to save all – read each sign under the towers to learn of the person within, and then make your decision.
You stagger back, horrified. You look at the towers and know the warning that you can’t save everyone is true. However, you know if you walk away, all four will die.
Knowing that you can save at least one life, you start towards the first tower and begin to read the signs, one by one.
Tower One: In this tower waits a newly-married couple. They are both twenty-three years old and are looking forward to a lifetime of love, children, and happiness ahead.
Tower Two: In this tower waits a forty-year-old woman. She has just found out the daughter she had to give up for adoption in her early twenties has learned of her true mother and wants to be with her. She is looking forward to a lifetime of reloving her daughter.
Tower Three: In this tower waits a fifty-year-old man. He and his first true love have recently reconnected after thirty years apart and he is due to get on a flight to be with her. He is looking forward to a lifetime of love missed the first time around.
Tower Four: In this tower waits a seventy-year-old man. His wife of fifty years is in a coma and her life support is due to be turned off. If you choose him, however, she will be restored to full health. He is looking forward to a second chance to complete his life.
These are your choices. You have five minutes to decide, and then push the red button at the base of the tower whose inhabitant you choose should live.
Your time starts now.
The Ambiguity of Morals
As I mentioned in the introduction, there is no right or wrong answer here.
Each tower inhabitant deserves to live. Each has so much to live for, for very different reasons.
My curiosity lies with who you choose, should you decide to partake. Is it,
- The young, newly-married and completely in love couple with everything ahead of them?
- The mother who had to make the hardest decision a mother could, only to have a second chance with her daughter?
- The man who gets something few of us rarely do – the chance at being with your first love for the rest of your life?
- The elderly couple, whose husband gets to be with the love of his life as his wife “cheats” death?
We’re faced with decisions every day. Rarely do they mean the difference between life and death, and thankfully so – I can only imagine how hard it must be in real life.
This dilemma, though, is almost parable-like. We know no-one dies in real-life based on the choice we make.
So, because of that, does that make your choice easier, or not?
Your decision awaits. I await your answer with genuine interest.