The Answer

Like a great horned beetle, it unlocked its wings and flew

with a soft buzzing noise and little grace to speak of. The philosophers

ran around the great wooden table trying to catch the damned thing.

It shouldn’t have been hard, it was awkward and large,

but that was precisely what caused so much panic among

those great, bald, learned men.

After what felt like an eternity of shouting and

Shuffling they captured it –

The essence of humanity, the shade of existence.

They stuck it with a pin,

labeled its parts,

hid it behind a glass pane,

for “the generations to come”, they said.

But the great question of life is faded

and worn out; the iridescence of its beetle back

is lost on the glazed over eyes of school kids shuffling by.

They don’t even understand the question written in a

Lost language on the brass plaque below the beetle:

“What does it mean to be human?”

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I have been reading a lot of political philosophy lately and it's blowing my mind. What I enjoy most about it, though, is the infinite questions that arise when we seek to answer even one.