LIFE IS LIE WITH AN F

I got out of the elevator feeling a heavy burden on my back.  I have this huge problem, and I did not know how I’m going to get out of it.  That’s how I got myself on the lobby of my condo, anyways – to buy me a pack of cigarettes.  I thought a couple of smokes would do me some good.  So after buying some reds, I sat at the stairs in front of the lobby and started lighting a cigarette.

            An old man, a drifter, came up to me and asked me if he could have a smoke.  Why not, I thought.  I was only a novice anyways, and it would be impossible for me to finish the whole pack even if I was wicked nervous.  So I gave him a cigarette, and I even lighted it for him.  He sat down with me and looked at the stars.  He smelled awfully foul, and his clothes looked more like rags.

            “What’s your problem, boy,” the old man asked me.

            I looked at him and realized how obviously depressed I was that even an old man noticed it.  I really didn’t want to tell him my problem.  He looked kind of crazy.

“Huge.”

            “How huge?”

            “Really huge.”

            “Well, that’s a really huge problem then.”

            “Tell me about it.”

            “How can I?  All I know’s that it’s really huge.”

            “I don’t know, I just can’t find an answer to this one.”

            I looked at him and laughed.  I hadn’t had a laugh for days until then.  He had a point, I thought, but I didn’t feel like sharing my problem to anyone right then.  I just wanted some peace and quiet out there on the stairs.  So I thought of asking the old man a clichéd yet deeply puzzling question that I figured would shut him up.

            “What’s the meaning of life?”

            He looked at me and laughed.  His breath smelled awfully unpleasant.

            “You’re trying to shut me up aren’t you, boy?”

            “Hey, I was just asking you a question.”

            He paused awhile, scanning my face, as if he’s looking for a bluff.  Then he leaned over me and bloated his eyes as if to stress out what he was about to say.

            “I think your question is the answer.”

            By that point I started entertaining the idea that the old man might really have some loose screws in his head.  I even thought of walking away from him, but I then I thought I would give the old man a chance.  Nothing really mattered to me anyway at that point.

“What?  What do you mean?”

            “You’re question is the answer itself.”

            “You mean to tell me that I answered my own question?”

            “Kinda’.”

            “Then, what do mean by that?”

He paused for a while, as if he was trying to tell me ‘get ready for this!’  He gave me a slight tap on my shoulder, and went on with his talking. 

            “The meaning of life is searching for the meaning of life.”

            I paused awhile and tried to decipher what he had just said.  That was some deep shit, I thought.  In a way, I understood what he said, but I still thought I didn’t really get the gist of it.

            “I’m still confused, old man.”

He gave a slight chuckle. He looked far away, and for a while none of us talked.  And then he looked at the stars, and told me, “No one can seek an answer from that question.  But by seeking the question, one can find an answer to it.”

 “What the hell do you mean?”

“There is no answer to that question except the question itself.”

I got even more confused by his statements.  We were just going in circles, I thought, and somehow I felt that he was toying with me.

“Have I ever told you you’re crazy?”

“Look at it this way m’boy: we all search for our purpose –the meaning of life, don’t we?  That’s what we do.  We search for our meaning.  But in the search for our meaning we often never realize that we’re creating the meaning of our own lives. If we quit the search, or worst, we find an answer, we stop, we give up or surrender, and then we’ll be meaning-less.

            I was supposed to puff my cigar, but I stopped dead on my tracks after hearing him say the word ‘meaningless.” had said.   Meaningless.  That’s how I felt.

            “That’s why,” he continued, “there is no answer to that question except the question itself.  The good thing about not finding the answer is that we’ll always keep searching for it.”

            “Yeah, and the bad thing about it is that you might get tired of it and realize how pathetically futile it is.  Why not just stop; stopping can be an answer.  If I’m meaningless, then I won’t really care if I’m meaningless, then it won’t be such a big deal to me.”

            “But the truth is no one wants to be meaningless.”

            The old man was right.  It was a simple yet undeniable answer. I felt like shit because I did not want to feel meaningless.  Looking at him, I felt guilty.  I could hardly imagine what that word meant to him, and how many times how many times he felt that way wandering in the streets.  I appreciated his answer.

“You’ve got some deep shit, old man.  You’ve got some deep shit.”

            He puffed on his cigar and gave a grin.  He looked down on the pavement and blew the smoke off.  This guy ain’t half bad, I thought.  Ain’t bad at all.

            “You’re pretty smart for a drifter, old man, and I mean no offense by that.”

            “None taken.  Well, when you’ve been living on the streets, you’ll learn some - what you call it - deep shit.”

            I don’t know, but what he said made me appreciate my life more and at the same time envy his.  I nodded to his statement.  What would Socrates or Plato or Kant say about what he said, I asked myself.  My cigarette was almost finished at that point.

            “So now you know I could help answer some of your questions, why don’t you tell me this problem of yours.”

            At that moment I really did want to tell him about my problem, but somehow, I really didn’t feel like telling it to anybody.

            “I told you, it’s huge.”

            “Huge!?  Look at me, boy!  I’m a goddamn forsaken bum for crying out loud.  Can your problem be any more ‘huge’ than mine?”

            I thought about it, and thought he was maybe right about that.  He probably had thousands of problems to battle everyday. He probably had to fight hunger and the cold and all that on a daily basis, and all I had was just this one huge problem.  I didn’t even think it was that huge anymore.

            “Maybe it’s the same size, I teasingly replied.  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.  You’ve given me all the help I needed, old man.  Thanks.  Here.”

            I gave him the rest of my cigarettes. He did not know it, but he cleared my mind somehow. I took a last puff out of my cigarette, and threw it out. After that I shook his hand, and went on my way back to the condo. When I got near the door, he yelled at me to try and get my attention. 

“Hey, a marathon runner got cramps in the middle of the run, but he still went on even though it meant a lot of pain.  He finished last.  Did he win?”

            “No.  Of course not.”

            “So who do you think got the most applause then, the one that got the gold medal, or the runner who had cramps?”

            I quickly got what he meant by that.  He knew I did.  Then he let out that grin yet again.  I thanked him once more, and this time, I was really grateful.  I swung the glass door open, and when I looked back, the old man was gone. 

I got back to the elevator and pressed on my flat’s floor.  I got my cell phone and started texting, even though I knew there was no signal on the elevator.  I felt so renewed somehow that I just started typing away.  Then, in the middle of all the button crunching, something got my attention.  I guess none of us really gives a lot of notice to it, but when one writes a text message the screen always has ‘Options’ and ‘Clear’ (for some Nokia phones, at least) on the bottom written opposite each other.  What a great metaphor, I thought. 

When the elevator door opened, I got out and got a signal back.  I pressed ‘Options’ and started on my way.                                                    

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