Idea Man

Folks, I'm an idea man. I don't mess around with concrete objects, manual labor, or hourly pay. I have a brain that's constantly filled with ideas, good ones, ones about things like what happens when you time travel and invent time travel earlier than it was actually invented. Obviously, you'd end up in a duel with alternate versions of yourself in which all versions of you kept traveling back in time to invent time travel earlier. It'd be a mess, I assure you, but that's neither here nor there (but at the same time, it's both here and there! Don't you see?!!!). Since I deal with ideas, and chose a totally career-unfriendly major (philosophy) in which to use this "talent", I find myself wrestling with the big questions all of the time (see above).

However, there are certain things that people think an "idea man" should know, certain things they should be able to, if not answer, at least have many thoughts about. One of these things, these "burning questions" is the now infamous "what is the meaning of life?". Well, I gotta say, I hate to disappoint, but that's probably the stupidest and most meaningless question I've ever heard. I've found that people really only ask this in 3 circumstances:

a) They ask me what I got my degree in, I answer, then they ask me the above question
b) The person asking is French and in their 20s
c) The person is taking Peyote with their friends and thinks they are going to have a deep, hallucinogen-fueled discussion.

There may be more specific occasions, but I assure you that they are merely derivatives of the above three. The thing to take away from this rant, before I officially launch into it, is that this question doesn't mean anything. Normally, if someone asks you a question, even if you don't know the answer, you at least know how you would answer it if you knew the information they were requesting. For instance. If someone asked me who played the President of the United States in the classic aliens-attack-earth-and-Randy-Quaid-saves-humanity- film "Independence Day," even if I didn't know Bill Pullman's name or didn't know anything about the movie, I could at least know the form that a satisfying answer would have. But the "big question" does not meet this criteria. There is no satisfying answer format that anyone can think of. Try it, I'll wait. Those who are smart-asses, like myself, probably said "well, if they're asking the meaning of life, a dictionary entry for the word will suffice". True, I have answered people in that way, and they are not satisfied, which showed me that they either a) are prejudiced against Merrian Webster or b) were not asking for the definition of the word "life".

Really, it boils down to this: being alive, then asking what is the meaning of life is like receiving a chemistry set for Christmas and asking "so, what am I supposed to do with this?". Furthermore, people who ask the even more irritating "why are we here?" are basically doing the same thing as getting an awesome present from your friend, but asking why they got you a gift when it's not your birthday or anything. Just fucking enjoy the present and be happy you got it in the first place! I realize that at this point, I'm sounding kind of preachy, but I don't care. I don't think I blame people for asking these questions, though. They most likely heard other people ask them, and never bothered to think of how meaningless the question is. It's like when you hear that smart guy with the sportcoat (the one with the suede elbow pads on it) say "superfluous" at a cocktail party, and you think you got it by using the context, so you continue to use it, but not correctly. Ultimately, one day, you'll describe the pizza you just ate as superfluous, and someone will inform you that you might not know what it means. At that point, it is your job to inform others using words incorrectly to cease and desist. In the same way, take the initiative and let people know how silly their question about the meaning of life is.

Remember, there are a lot of things in Monty Python movies that don't warrant your intense investigation, the "meaning of life" is one of them.