A Dialogue with Much Ado About Nothingness

The wise man began to speak:
“If I could only touch the truth, like it was a tangible thing. And then we incessantly search for it, nonstop, and some of us will search all of our lives. We will ponder, and suppose, and then guess, with innumerable trails and errors. A few of us embark on a futile trek for our untold truths! Ha! And with what luck do we ever find ourselves successful, with an undeniable certainty I mean? If the wisest man told you he knew it all, everything! If he said his brain encompassed the totality of all things that can be known, then… do you believe him? Will you simply dismiss every bit of your cynical skepticism? Can you epoché you epoché? (he laughs to himself!!!) I do doubt it my philosophical friend. It is now too much of a habit of yours—to base inquiry upon inquiry, and place doubt upon doubt. How does one who seeks the truth expect to find it; especially when he follows his questions with more questions, and then more… and more. It’s as if his process infinitely progresses, and then regresses, and…..”

“So what truths are to be found in this world?” I cut him off with this question. “I no longer think there are any at all!” I say. “But the world is to guarantee us nothing but absurdity! Yes my wise friend, for I do think that I have it all figured out! You may think I am kissing the asses of existentialist! But I’ll agree with Kierkegaard, and Sartre, and Nietzsche. I want to comply with Camus as I declare to you with an utmost certainty, that the world is nothing but a cosmic, measureless mass of uncertainties!” I think if even God himself, or herself I guess… but whoever the being would be, if it told me that it were God I’d probably still have my doubts about that avowal. So therefore, I guess my quandary is not one such as how do I believe in God (or to believe the truth we can say) but my difficulties are how can I believe God himself (or herself, like I’ve said)?”

Then the wise man laughs to himself and asks me “Do you not understand it my naïve and young friend? Does the idealism of your youthfulness blind you so badly that you cannot simply see your truth for what it is? Or maybe you search too hard for it. (laughs) Yes, I’m almost certain that this is what you do. You look too hard for what you cannot see, for what is unperceivable by your very own sentience. Your searches will only continue to bring you anguish, and at the end of the day you are left with more despair. You love wisdom you say, well do you?”

“I do lover her” I respond. “And I can’t leaver her alone. I’m like Boethius and this Sophia is like my mistress! A fatal attraction we have for each other. I’m madly in love!

“Well my young romantic” the wise man replies “you do know what it is like to be in love with a woman.” I take it you’ve been in love with a sweet siren of the flesh before, a woman not the same as your Sophia, but similar.

“I think so” I say. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love, but just once. She was a sweet girl, and we made love often. But, our consciousnesses could never meet—even though we tried. That’s the tragedy of romance, isn’t it? That we try so hard for our souls to meet, but it can’t happen. When we’re in love we try to learn so much about that person. We spend late nights immersed in conversation until sunrise, as we’ve inquired the deepest and darkest desires of our other. We want to learn everything from her favorite color to her worst fear. We ask each other about petty things, and the most personal things. ‘What is your favorite food, your favorite song, what are your thoughts about a God, and what are your life’s aspirations?’ Yes my wise friend. I know a little something about a living love, and how it goes along with this thing we call life. But what I know best about this love is that it doesn’t let two souls touch! It sends them into an irrational frenzy, and a midnight ecstasy! Only to torture them and allow temporary relief! This is what I know best about love!

“I see you understand then” says the wise man, “for you have experienced the feeling before, in our own earthly forms, of what it is truly like to love. And thus I must commend you, for being wise beyond your years. Although, if you will allow me to do so, I ask that you will heed my advice. If you are to continue to love your women, and your philosophy and your truths, then you must be aware of this one thing. That love is the most dynamic, and the most uncertain of man’s powers. It empowers you with a blind notion of the most blithe bliss, and hence you become susceptible to the most emphatic despair. This love can make your soul feel complete and then tear it asunder! And in any form that it may reveal itself, through its erogenous eros, or philos, or agape; remember that it can and will conquer.

Now think back to what I was saying earlier, when I told you you are searching entirely too hard for what you cannot see. For the truth lies behind your eyes, and cannot be seen as an image. It is between your ears, and will never be heard as sounds and songs!

“What in God’s name do you mean?” I shout. “What truth is there in those places? There’s nothing a small sample of biology and anatomy. I doubt you’ll find any absoluteness where you say!”

“Man is a truth within himself,” says the old wise man. Then he slowly creeps over to his chair, the one between the window and his fireplace. He choreographed his gait gracefully, by the aid of his cane and an inevitable onslaught of old age. He turned and sat down with an uncanny easiness; almost awkward I’d say, but successful.

“Is this man the only truth we’ll find?” I ask him. “Or people I’d better say, for if man is a trueness then woman must also be of it too. However, I’m still curious my ageless friend, how can this man exactly be a truth? For I thought a truth must be everlasting. And man is not, is he? At least, I’m pretty sure he isn’t? ….well, he’s not is he? Then I noticed my old amigo close his eyes. I thought he was about to doze off for a bit. As it is a tendency of the elderly, to drift off in the middle of a mid-day’s conversation. But he was really dying; somewhere in that infinitesimal instance of time it takes for one to die, he did. He would drift into the oblivious ranks of nothingness with the rest of the world’s expired greats. How odd I thought. And I wasn’t sad, since I thought myself the stoic. Death was nothing to me for that moment. But I was still curious.


…plus, I love how you told us Ms. Fason, not to take ourselves too seriously. I love it!