Wisdom

An elderly monk once told me that the secret of life lay in the undying hands of a ten year-old virgin. Thinking this a riddle, I smiled and asked him to tell me more; but he just said, with the faintest of smiles: “That girl gave a mean handjob.” And then he laughed and walked away, leaving me disenchanted.

Three years later, I walked all the way to India and met a wise man. When I asked him to tell me about life and its meaning, he smiled and pointed at my heart. Thinking this to be a deep sign, I asked him if he meant that love was the meaning of it all. But he smiled some more and told me that no, the secret of life is the heart. Because as long as it beats, you’re alive. When it stops, you die. “Not much of a secret,” I said. “I never said it was,” he replied. And here I was feeling let down again.

Many years later, as my hair became gray, people kept asking me what I thought of life and of its various surprises. I tried to be kind and honest and answer as best I could, but then I realized that I was the same man I was when I was born, except for the gray hair. And if people were dumb enough to regard this as a sign of wisdom, then they were too dumb for my honest answers. And so I started giving obtuse answers.

One day, as I left a disenchanted man behind me, I thought of the monk and of the wise Hindu and smiled to myself; and if I had had a hat, I’d have tipped it to them.