universal truth::veronica ceci

 

     Reality, what a scary concept. Something concrete and unshakable that looms over your everything, casting a trap-like shadow over existence. It's a good thing that reality is subjective, its boundaries can be rethought as needed, and, for myself, this need is constant. It is out of this need that my search for the universal truth began. I am aware of, and in fact revel in, the fact that my quest is an exercise in futility. To me, the overall pointlessness of existence is very freeing.
     My purpose here is not to reach a single definitive answer, but to explore the possibilities, examine each option and pick the best from the buffet to put on my plate. So, with vigor I march into the intellectual stomping ground of the great paradoxes of man: fully prepared to march on forever or be stomped on at any given moment. I invite you along with me as we journey towards no one destination, but simply enjoy the ride.
     Shall we depart? Our first stop is a brief tour of an age-old problem: which came first the chicken or the egg?
     As for myself, I feel that it is practically indisputable that the egg was the start, for isn't the single cell, multiplying and mutating, the origin of all life? How could a chicken possibly occur without having evolved through that same subtle mutation while starting as a single cell inside it's protective casing the egg? Then one must ask, what is the definition of a chicken? For if the single cell containing the deoxyribonucleic information necessary to produce a chicken qualifies as a chicken, then the chicken came first. It is the same problem that sparks the heated modern debate about abortion. At which moment does life begin? Many would believe that the tiny hunk of flesh that results after a few hours of multiplication would more than qualify as a chicken and I do not necessarily disagree. However, being an existentialist, I feel that a chicken is little more than the sum of his actions, and what action can define a chicken if it has not been confirmed by something outside of the chicken itself? That is not to say that a chicken cannot exist without confirmation, but a chicken cannot exist to me until I have acknowledged/accepted the existence of the chicken.
     I know not if there is a chicken inside of every egg. Indeed, I regularly see dozens of eggs that shall forever remain chickenless. Since the egg is the vessel for the potential chicken, and the existence of the egg can be confirmed before that of the chicken, the egg came first.

(I understand that this statement is still quite arguable if one begins to question the various methods of confirmation, etc. But c'mon people, work with me here, I am trying.)