The Problem

 "Life" is a problem set, a good-sized packet, spiral-bound with time. Question follows question, annoyingly repetitive, each asking, "How shall I live this day?" So vague, and yet each demanding an answer. Not everyone receives the same packet, though. Some get sheets with the answer in parentheses after the question, which hardly seems fair, but then again, it's not as fun to solve a problem you already know the answer to. Some don't get a reference table, and have to scramble to answer the question with whatever they can find in the recesses of their psyche. The formulas don't always work, anyway. As soon as the work is finished for one, the sheet is taken away; no time to go back and correct. It's unclear if this assignment is graded or not, so some just muddle through and fill in the blanks. Some flock to the smartest, the prettiest, or the most popular in the class and copy her answers, but there is no answer sheet, so the fruits of their deception are rotten in the bud. Someone raises his hand into the silence and asks if there's retakes, but the teacher is absent, or dead, or never existed. At the end of it all, when pencils are laid down and people start biting their lips, the class joker raises his hand with a smirk and asks, "What was the purpose of that exercise? It seemed pretty pointless to me." Some turn and look at the student teacher, who claims that the teacher left instructions. Some wrinkle their brow, wracking their brains in the hopes that it wasn't all for nothing. Some just laugh. The teacher's pet rolls her eyes- "It's not your place to ask. There must be some point, or the teacher wouldn't assign it, now would they?" Everyone averts their eyes.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 13, 2017 at 1:55 PM

    Nice post!

    When you say that 'there must be some point, or the teacher wouldn't assign it' I don't think that in life there is an actual 'teacher' who decides what the 'point' is. I believe that you are the only one who decides what the point of your life is, no one else. You can either neglect to make your life fulfilling with a point or not, that's up to you, but you can definitely have a *point* in life.

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