Life Search's

"Don't look so glum. One day you might find it."

"It?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"It."

"Yes, but what is "it"?"

"What you've been searching for."

"Searching for?"

"You're whole life."

"I haven't been searching. At least I didn't think I was."

"Of course you have. Everyone does it. Very few realise it."

"But that doesn't help me. What is it I've been searching for? If I
knew I might be able to look better."

"How should I know?"

"How should you know? You're the one who just said I might find
it."

"Yes. You might find it."

"But what is "it"?"

"I don't know. One day you might find out."

"Is that the same day that I actually find it?"

"It might be. On the other hand, who can say."

"This isn't getting me anywhere, its just confusing me."

"Understandable."

"You're saying that I'm looking for something. That everyone is looking
for something, and that there is a possibility one day I might find
it&;#8230;"

"Yes but&;#8230;"

"No, I'll deal with the buts for the moment. But&;#8230;. but I
don't know what it is I'm looking for, neither is there a guarantee
that I will ever know, and even if I do know, that might not actually
help me find it."

"No, that's right. If you did find out that might actually hinder your
search."

"So what happens when I do find it?"

"When you finally find what you've been looking for your entire
life?"

"Yes."

"I couldn't say really. I don't think I've ever met anyone who actually
found it, at least if they did they didn't know they had, or they just
didn't tell me."

"This is crazy."

"Not really. You might find it one day, but you might not know that
you've found it."

"But what's the point in finding it if I don't actually know that I've
found it?"

"You'll feel complete, and you won't be in want. You'll be content with
what you've got, and you won't always be hungering for what you don't
have."

"I suppose I can understand that. But surely if I don't know what I'm
searching for, and I find what I've been searching for, then that's as
good as not finding it, or at least giving up."

"What do you mean?"

"If I give up the search now, wont I be a lot more content and complete
and the rest of it in an instant - like right now?"

"I don't see how."

"I'll be content with what I've got, because I won't be looking for
something I haven't got. It's especially stressful if I'm always
looking for something and I don't know what that something is, and the
odds are arranged such that I'm more likely to find that thing if I don
t even know what that thing is, and even more likely if I don't know
that I'm searching at all. As you say anyway."

"Maybe that's what your searching for. I don't know."

"Why am I even listening to you. You don't know what you're talking
about."

"I certainly do."

"How's that. It seems to me all you're actually saying to me is that
you don't know anything, and that I shouldn't know anything either,
even though I do actually know quite a lot."

"I know about what I know about, and I know about life searches."

"How do you know about life searches?"

"Because I know what my life search is."

"You do, do you? How do you know that it's your real life search and
your not just deluding yourself."

"I just do."

Silence.

"Ok then Socrates what is it?"

"What is what?"

"Your life search idiot! Don't play games."

"Ok Ok. I have narrowed my life search down to a simple thing. One
simple thing. It's so simple I can't help laughing sometimes."

"Laughing? I thought life searches were serious, transcendental matters
- surely not a laughing matter."

"Yes, but mine is so simple. Anyone could adopt it and they'd have it
made."

"I couldn't agree with that. But why don't you just tell me what it
is."

"Money."

"Money? A bit shallow don't you think?"

"No, well I suppose if it was just money that would be a bit shallow.
Money and children, so that means getting a wife too. But all well
within my means don't you think."

"You are married and you do have children."

"Wonderful isn't it!"

Pondering.

"That can't be your life search."

"Why not."

"You said everyone has a life search and hardly anyone ever realises
that fact, or ever finds out what it is, or ever actually finds it.
Billions of people are married with children and have money. Infact,
pretty much everyone searches for something like that and a lot of them
get it. Surely a life search must transcend these things -a wife and
children are almost like window dressings - incidental, if you will, to
the true search. Surely that's what you meant."

"I did. But I can search for money - more money, less money, the same
amount of money - it doesn't matter. As long as I have some money and
at least one child."

"Why's that?"

"Because then it's all up to my kid and I can sit back and
relax!"

"Ha ha! You're crazy."

"Wonderful, isn't it."

"Not really. How the hell do you expect your kid to find it if all you
want to do is sit back and relax? The little monster will probably end
up doing the same thing."

"That could be their search, or they might just be stupid. If I were
stupid I'd leave the life searching up to my intelligent offspring.
That's what I'm doing now - I know I'm too much of an idiot to ever
find what it is I'm searching for, so I'm hoping my children wont be as
thick as I am and might have a chance of finding it."

"Is you wife stupid too?"

"Thick as too short planks."

"Then how can you expect your children to have any brains? They haven't
got a very good gene pool to start off with have they."

"That's not my problem. My wife's blond, blue eyed, busty and gorgeous
- what can I do?"

"But what about your life search? Minimalist though it is, it must at
least mean giving your children a chance to find what it is they're
looking for."

"I can't help that - maybe they should get a clever wife. Me, I don't
think I would have got married or had children unless my wife was drop
dead gorgeous. Anyway, enough about me. Just trust to the fact that I
do know a lot about life searches. I was just trying to help you in
your confusion. You might very well find what you're looking
for."

"Judging from what you've be saying I haven't got a hope in
hell."

"No - you're just looking at it from the wrong way round. Get a
gorgeous girl first, a nice job, a house and the rest of it, and then
you'll be set up to look for what you really looking for."

"But I might be too old to go on searching by then."

"You might."

Pause.

"Let's hope you have children."

"What if I don't have children, or I don't even want children?"

" Then you'd better get your skates on."

"Humm&;#8230;. Let me ask you something else."

"Go ahead."

"What if my life search is unattainable."

"Unattainable?"

"Yea, you know, impossible."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, lots of things. Like bringing about world peace."

"That's a silly life search."

"I know, but what if that was my life search and I didn't know it - I'd
never be happy would?"

"I doubt it."

"But that's just my point. You haven't told me what happens to all
those people who don't achieve their life searches."

"They remain tortured I guess."

"But if they don't even know they're searching for something?"

"Then they're tortured but they just don't know it."

"You can't be tortured without knowing it - that just doesn't make
sense. It's like me saying I'm in agonising pain but the anaesthetic is
stopping me from feeling it."

"Whatever."

"You really are talking bullshit."

"If you say so."

"OK then. Say my life search was to bring about world
peace&;#8230;."

"Is it really? That'd be one for the text books my friend."

"No, it's not really - hypothetically I mean."

"Right."

"Say also that I knew it was my life search."

"You knew it was your one goal in life to find world peace?"

"Yes."

"Even though the world is patently not at peace, and doesn't show much
prospect of getting that way soon either?"

"Yep."

"And so you'd have to consciously try to bring about world peace before
your time is up, else you wouldn't complete your life search?"

"That's about the sum of it."

"That would be a bummer."

"Yes but what would happen to me? I would knowingly spend years and
years searching for something that I know is quite probably impossible
wouldn't I."

"You would."

"What does that do to a man? I'd know my cause was right and I'd know
it was the search for me, but I'd also know that id never achieve it.
What would that do to me? Wouldn't it destroy me - the sheer
hopelessness of it, and the inevitability?"

"I've never thought of it that way. I guess it might. It might not
though."

"What else could happen?"

"You might actually achieve world peace&;#8230;"

"Come on!"

"Ok. You could learn to live with it and just get on with things. Do
your best, you know. Try not to stare into the stark fate."

Breath taken.

"You know what?"

"What."

"You do know a thing or two about life searches."