So when we meet in my philosophy class in his prison and I say, In this class, we will discuss the foundations of ethics,

Could be I'm wrong. I'm tired of being wrong.

What is that idea?

He took some money we'll take his money. That'll teach him.

Maybe one of us is wrong about the wrong.

Come on Adam, don't be so wishy washy. Take a bite. I did.

It is the project of questioning what we believe and why we believe it what Socrates called the examined life.

What Tony sees in that moment is the project of philosophy, the project that begins in wonder what Kant called admiration and awe at the starry sky above and the moral law within.

How do we know that it's wrong? Maybe you and I disagree.

It was mom's gun.

It is the project that always takes us back to the condition of existence what Heidegger called the always already there.

Doctors insert a catheter into your chest, which is attached to a pump that weighs about four and a half pounds.

So Tony starts doing his homework.

I am told every day, by every face I see, every wall I face, that I am wrong.

Maybe it's you, maybe it's me but we're not here to trade opinions everyone's got an opinion.

So when he gives me his final paper, in which he argues that the categorical imperative is perhaps too uncompromising to deal with the conflict that affects our everyday and challenges me to tell him whether therefore we are condemned to moral failure,

Meet Tony. He's my student.

I know what is wrong. I have done wrong.

What makes something wrong?

I want to know what I know.

I want to know about wrongness itself, the idea of wrong.

We are here for knowledge.

Some of the crackles and pops were lightning, but the eerie whistles and curiously melodious chirps had a rather more exotic origin.

Our enemy is thoughtlessness. This is philosophy.

Thomas Watson spent hours listening to the strange crackles and hisses and chirps and whistles that his accidental antenna detected.

It's just a sick, silly joke.

Socrates died in prison, his philosophy intact.

He's about my age, and he's in San Quentin State Prison.

Socrates, a man wise enough to know that he knows nothing.

When Tony was 16 years old, one day, one moment,

What can creatures like us know of such things?

His body is in prison, but his mind is free.

That's Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche and Bill Clinton.

It is not professor and convict, it is just two minds ready to do philosophy.

Because in that moment, there's no mark by Tony's name it's just the two of us standing there.

And as Dan Buettner can tell you, having a strong social network is so crucial to our health.

And those three words, Tony's going to remember, because the next thing he knows, he hears the pop.

These are the kinds of lessons as awkward as it was to be a pretty goofy teenager, much worse to be a frustrated designer.

Her former name was Fay Wray, and so that was I didn't have the wit to say, Take the painting.

The pump was a little bit problematic when performing, so I'd attach it to my inner thigh with the help of the girdle and an ACE bandage.

And that's felony murder 25 to life, parole at 50 if you're lucky, and Tony's not feeling very lucky.

Literally hundreds of elevator rides were spent with me alone stuffing the pump into my Spanx, hoping the doors wouldn't open unexpectedly.

Every day, 24 hours, that pump is at your side, administering medicine directly to your heart, and it's not a particularly preferable medicine in many senses.

Finally, with the last bottle in and the last bubble out, I attached the pump to the tubing and lay there hoping it would kick in soon enough.