CHLOE’S STORY - 6

CHLOE’S STORY - 6

So when my generation got out into the real world we were faced with the choice of either continuing to base our identity on a superficial and obsolete culture or lose our identity until we could find something else to latch onto. I watched as most of my childhood friends latched onto their jobs, spouses, children, favorite sports team, or anything else outside of themselves they could use to define themselves by since they‟d never cultivated a solid internal identity that could stand on its own. Me, I guess I just defined myself as someone who was lost. It was dejected and lonely, but it was honest.

I wanted to help Chloe avoid the same mistakes I‟d made, but it was pointless telling her she was doing something wrong if I couldn‟t tell her what was right. It goes without saying that I tried anyway, but in the end all it accomplished was making me lose even more credibility in her eyes, and she slipped farther away from me into pop-culture fantasy land.

The older Chloe got the more panicked I felt to unravel the mystery of life for her before it was too late, but I‟d hit a dead end in my search. I‟d exhausted the most reputable sources of knowledge available and found next to nothing. I decided to face the fact that that nobody had written the book I was looking for.

It crushed me when I realized none of the geniuses throughout history truly had it all figured out (especially since their publishers assured me they did). I didn‟t think I‟d actually have to create an answer myself, but apparently that was the only way I was going to get one. The problem with that plan was that if the celebrities of academia weren‟t able to figure out a logical explanation of the meaning of life then obviously there was no way I‟d be able to do it. I was too...ordinary.

I started to wonder if maybe the answer was simply beyond the grasp of human intelligence, period. This possibility filled me with dread because if it really was true that we can never know the meaning of life then that would mean we can never fulfill it. That would mean we were never meant to fulfill it. That would mean, for all practical purposes, life has no meaning and mine, Chloe‟s, my wife‟s, my parents, my brothers, my friends, and everybody else‟s lives were nothing more than arbitrary pieces in a cosmic game of Periwinkles; we possessed infinite potential but zero personal significance.

Despite the existential depression I‟d dug myself into I reluctantly went on about the business of living. I tried to act like nothing was wrong and continued going to work and socializing with friends but found it hard to be enthusiastic about anything because it seemed like none of it mattered in the long run.

It would have been easy to just give up. At least that would have brought closure to the issue, but I couldn‟t shake the suspicion that it‟d be contradictory for life to exist without a purpose. So as I went through the motions of life I continued to think about and observe the world around me hoping against the odds I‟d find the clues Chloe missed in the park years ago.