A little introspection (hope it's not too boring)

I've often feel like I have never fit in. I was brought up in a very conservative, religious part of the country but I am gay and known so for quite a long time (admitting it took a while, but it was always there). I'm gay, but I have never voted Democrat in my life, haven't seen an Oscar, Emmy, or Tony award show, love my family and don't get drag. I live in California, but I smoke (and not just smoke, but smoke cigars *shudder*). I work in the technology arena, but I am educated and not simply trained (and in fact I prefer a classical education to simple technical training as a college endeavor). Lately I have been thinking about another area in which I am not part of the mainstream and that is my ethics. For those of you who didn't sleep through freshman philosophy in college you will recall there are three principle approaches to normative ethics:consequentialism where it's the results that count, deontology where doing one's duty is the important thing, and the minority position of virtue ethics, where character is king. Of the three, I find myself squarely (and with much personal difficulty) in the virtue camp. My parents would never have known it but they were key in this part of my muddled mess and I am thankful for it. In a nutshell, virtue ethics isn't focused on what you do or why you do it, but in what kind of person you are. Since a virtuous person performs the virtues, you kind of get the other two as a side affect. My parents, by being two of the most virtuous people I know, didn't load me down with rules and regulations but modeled... no, lived, the kind of life they thought was worth living. Plato began and Aristotle refined the Western understanding of what we call virtue ethics making one "commandment" to find someone that is virtuous, who fills his or her life with good things, loves "the good", and then study them, imitate them, make what they do become a part of you (character building). My parents (and to a lesser extent my extended family) did that for me. Unfortunately I haven't always been a good student, so rather than the plot of my moral life looking like y=x^2 (or even y=x) probably looks more like a graph of the Dow. My partner is another good moral guide, plugging in some of the holes that my parents couldn't. My parents often remind me that I too have a duty to fulfill as a guide. I have two wonderful nephews. My mother tends to remind me that I need to leave "big shoes" for them to fill. I think Aristotle would like that advice, and I think I need to work a little harder.