Secrets (excerpt)
There once existed an obscure school of thought which held that the essence of an entire life can be captured by the tracing all of the secrets it held. More specifically, it was hypothesized that by inputting qualitative and quantitative data concerning these secrets into some yet-to-be-found formula, an output could be generated encapsulating the meaning of the particular life in question. For example, at the end of Anne’s life, her data sheet might read:
Category: the secret of thinking too much and doing too little. Quantity: the solitude of twenty years in prison.
Category: the secret of running backwards while moving forward. Quantity: the productivity of an insomniac night spent hunched over a desk illuminated by the soft glow of a table lamp.
Category: the secret of how could I have not known that I never really meant anything to you in the first place. Quantity: the insanity of consuming two point five nine six pints of an alcoholic beverage with seven point nine four three eight percent alcohol concentration.
Category: the secret of today is the day I think I am going to give up. Quantity: the grief of the death of three children.
Category: the secret of maybe my life is now so empty I have no secrets left to tell. Quantity: the consequences of and placing your happiness contingent on the fickle whims of another.
The list goes on and on.
The only problem is that the formula was never found, despite the efforts of the most intelligent men at the most prestigious research institutions. Eventually, this idea was simply discarded, shoved into the pile of other rejected ideas that similarly never came to fruition because of the secret of today is the day I think I am going to give up.
And so it goes, so it goes, the few that still remain loyal to this dying theory believe that with each coming generation, all the secrets of lives passed merely accumulate beneath the ignorance of a world unable to decipher their significance, and there they deteriorate into the void of the forgotten.
