I was sixteen. My parents were recently divorced. Once a month, I’d visit my father at his swanky apartment and we’d discuss my future.
One night, my father stared at me across the dinner table, a slab of rare steak leaking its red juices into a mountain of mashed potatoes. He squinted, as if trying to determine whether I was his son or a lost philosophy major who’d wandered in from a patchouli-scented commune.
“So,” he said, carving off a bloody corner, “what are your career plans?”
I gave him the truth. “Not totally sure, but I’m leaning toward philosophy.”
He dropped his knife like I’d just confessed to joining a nudist circus. “Why in the hell would you want to do a thing like that?”
“The search for meaning,” I said.
He snorted and chased his chew with a gulp of red wine, as if meaninglessness required lubrication. “Don’t waste your time.”
“Meaning is a waste of time?”
He wiped his mouth like he was preparing to deliver a TED Talk from the underworld. “Let me tell you a little story.”
And then came one of Dad’s home-brewed parables—equal parts whiskey, cynicism, and divine apathy:
“A young man, about your age, stood on a beach and looked up at the heavens. ‘God,’ he said, ‘help me find meaning.’ And God, being the cosmic wiseass that He is, replied, ‘Look at all the rocks around you. One of them has the meaning of life written on it. Go find it.’ The young man looked around—millions of rocks—and said, ‘But God, that’ll take forever.’ And God said, ‘That’s your problem, not mine.’”
I already regretted everything.
“Decades passed. The man turned over every rock. He aged like a leather shoe abandoned in the desert. No inscription. He grew sunburned, brittle, and spiritually constipated. Finally, in his nineties, he looked up at the sky, trembling with rage, and shouted, ‘God! I’ve been faithful! No pleasure, no joy, no Netflix—just rock-flipping! And I found nothing!’”
Dad leaned in, eyes gleaming.
“And God said: ‘That’s right, you dumb shit. Now die.’”
There was a silence. Even the mashed potatoes seemed stunned.
I blinked. “Where in the hell did you hear that story?”
He leaned back, smug as a snake on a warm rock. “Made it up. For your benefit.”
“My benefit? What am I supposed to take from this bleak little fable?”
He ticked the lessons off like commandments: “One, God doesn’t give a shit. Two, there is no meaning. Three, stop thinking so damn much and just live your life.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered. “Cruising around in your fancy car, living in your swanky bachelor pad, drinking overpriced wine.”
“Worry not, my son,” he said, swirling his cabernet like it owed him rent. “You’ll get yours someday.”
“So you’ve found paradise?”
He shrugged. “Far from it. But it’s got central air. And that’ll have to do.”
Cinemorphosis 
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