I call this truth because it has no counterargument. It is simple because even a child could think of it. Its simplicity makes it hideously embarrassing to mention even in passing, let alone extol. It is the idea that life is pointless.
Only a child could be naive enough to take bold pride in this idea. A child might be spared ridicule–He’s at that age, you see–they say with amused eyes–we all thought we had the world figured out back then. The man that still believes the embarrassingly simple truth is but a child that never grew, and we do not look as kindly towards men as we do children.
I did not grow–I never did. But I can articulate the idea better now than I could before: when the truth in itself held some kind of otherworldly light, like a beacon rising from a dark, stormy sea whose purpose and construction seemed self-explanatory. No–the truth holds no light, draws no moths, and guides no ships. It lies submerged in the murky waters, beneath the crashing waves, competing against countless sweeter truths. So I will explain it as best as I can.
There are three reasons to live. The first is to parent. A loving father sees himself in his son–ears in the same shape, eyes of the same colour, and a smile that resembles his wife’s more than his own–and raises him knowing those features, which would have accompanied him to the grave, will stay etched into his child. He never once thinks of adoption–only a fleshy replica deserves to bear the family name and the weight of his love. He thinks of the vines that pulled at his ankles every step of his way here, and frantically clears the path for his son to run, hoping he will look back and remember being nestled in his father’s strong arms.
The second is to create. Art created a thousand years ago still holds today every drop of soul it did then. It is an expression of the self: a call that echoes the artist’s name for all to hear. It is an expression of ego: proof of the artist’s skill and the depth of their contemplation. Every note of music, stroke of paint, and line of prose lies today permuted exactly how the artist envisioned it and will remain so: immutable evidence of what the artist thought was good and meaningful art. Art lives in service of the artist, praising his name beyond death.
The third is to rack up good karma for the afterlife. Do good now and be rewarded after death–this idea prevails in religion and even other circles, such as cryonics, though the latter revolves more around having the money to afford it. A clear greed for paradise or fear of hell drives people to devote their lives to the one that comes after.
In all three there is the urge to self-preserve and reach beyond the grave into the great unknown. The father lives on through his son; the artist through his art; the pious in heaven, and the frozen billionaire in postmodern utopia. But all fail. The child dies, and so do his children. They crumble before the Great Filter and succumb to the extinction of the human race–if not by its own hand, then by the heat death of the universe. Without humans, museums turn to mausoleums as crumbling pieces of art scream their artists’ names to nobody, eventually falling silent as the last one turns to dust. Proof of God thins by the day and soon the stories of the pious returning to paradise will be deemed just that: stories. The corpsicle that thaws dies like the children did, and the corpsicle that chooses to sleep is thawed by force when swallowed by the Sun.
Which is the purpose that does not end in bleak slaughter? Or the fires of the Sun? The cold embrace of space? All roads lead to death, and death alone! If no purpose holds, then it does not matter which one you choose. The crowd that laughs and points at the manchild who talks about the embarrassingly simple truth have all chosen their poison: one of the three. The worst thing about choosing your poison is that you cannot see it as poison. Once you realise that your road too leads to death, there is no reason to continue walking it. You might as well step off and kill yourself immediately, which, for obvious reasons, nobody wants to do. Our instinct to self-preserve forces us to choose a path, delaying the hammer of judgment. All I have to do is focus on what lies in my hands: the infant and the pacifier. The paintbrush and the easel. The rosary and the scripture. Any of the three, or perhaps all three for good measure. All I have to do is focus on the present: how I will care for my child today, and how I must feed him tomorrow. The paint on this canvas, and ideas for what to paint next. Sunday Mass today, and Christmas dinner in a fortnight. Humans were born capable of imagining vast spans of time, but we were never meant to–for looking too far ahead only reveals that there is nothing to look forward to.
Hence the embarrassingly simple truth. It draws ridicule because to speak it is to say that the miracle cure is poison; to point to every infant, painting and holy book in a room crowded with people and curse them as means to a meaningless end. These are people who feel genuinely happier drinking the cure and look forward to drinking it again the next day, the day after, and the day after that. How could anyone dare pull the vial out of their hands, point to it and call it poison? It also begs the question: why not kill yourself, if you are so disillusioned?
Some do, while others live on, too afraid of a grisly death, pulled along by force by instinct, too cowardly to change the status quo. It is a slow and painful process, but the embarrassingly simple truth eventually becomes too much for you to bear. It takes one measly step to fall out of a highrise window. A large dose of courage to endure the fright of the ground rushing up towards you. Until finally–slam! the hammer of judgment brings your life to a close, signaling the lifting of the gag order so the bystanders surrounding your corpse, reading your obituary, and attending your funeral can comment on your performance like a football post-game analysis.
What an irresponsible way to die. He could have hit someone, killing them too. Whoever saw it must be traumatised, tut the pair of housewives each cradling a baby in their arms–all four already sentenced to inevitable death and absolute, irreversible erasure of the soul.
A wasted life. Never contributed anything to the world, tsks a fashionable artist, and from how arrogantly he does so you might forget that not just the museum across the street but also the city it stands in will be reduced to dust and ash in a fraction of the time the Earth has lived for.
He’s going to hell for sure, thinks the priest as your closed-coffin is lowered into the Earth. He does not know that the you observing him is neither a spirit in heaven nor hell but is purely a fictional figure, thought up by a stranger on the internet to demonstrate his point more effectively than if he were to write a story that ended with a body splattering against the pavement below.
All three groups disperse from your funeral and leave you to rest in the ground. They dream of their chosen poisons, eager to drink and forget about their looming annihilation. I will not let them. I will do you a favour to thank you for reading this long.
As the last clod of earth covers your coffin six feet under, the sky flashes an unearthly hue: not red, blue, nor green, but all three mixed into an alien colour. A pulse of never before seen cosmic energy bathes not just the Earth but the entire universe, instantly killing all life. A collective thud sounds out as they all drop like flies and the delayed hammers of judgment swing, sentencing all to erasure of the soul. The Earth and the heavens above fall silent.
This is the end of the road. Now there is nobody left to embarrass you for your truth. They lie and decay and crumble to dust along with you. The stormy waters are finally calm, as there are no truths left to compete.
In the end, the embarrassingly simple truth is the only one that can stand on its own without humans to extol it. It is obvious–it says life is pointless, so why does it care if anyone is around? In comparison, the three other roads collapse like a house of cards. These calm, clear waters make way for a single beacon: a lighthouse that draws no moths and guides no ships, for there are none left. Is it lit, however? I do not know. Neither you nor I will be around to see it.