A LUCILIUS PARABLE: LITTLE LIE

May 9th, 2021

When Lucilius was a young boy, someone lied to him.  Luckily, the lie worked.  Being a young boy he was full of naiveté and optimism, the perfect combination in order to be gullible.  The lie wasn’t on purpose, of course, as Is the case with most lies.  It was more incidental, a passing thought really, something mostly to entertain the liar than anything having to do with deception.

Lucilius merely asked, as all young children do, what happens when you die?  Where do you go?

“You start over,” was the answer.

“Start over? What do you mean?  Like, you have a new life?”

“No, it’s the same one?”

“Like you start in the same place but you can do things differently?”

“No, it’s the same exact life.”

The boy Lucilius took a moment to contemplate this strange turn of events before asking further.

“So it’s like a loop that just goes over and over?”

“That’s right, which means you better make it a good one, a really good one, full of fun and adventure and excitement and deep experiences. Drink it up now,  otherwise you’ll spend the rest of eternity being thirsty.”

This instantly filled the young Lucilius with a very useful anxiety.  There was so much to do, some many places to go, so many people to meet.  He worried he wouldn’t be able to fit it all in.

It was years later before an older Lucilius realized that he was still operating with that same underlying idea that he would have to live this life over and over, even though he’d long come to his own conclusions about the nature or likelihood of knowing anything about experience after death.  The lie had made it’s mark, but Lucilius was glad for it, his life was indeed full, brimming, and there was still so much more left to explore.