Now I don’t know about you but I’ve never been a big subscriber to this idea that we can learn a lot from children. All that child is the father of the man and wisdom of innocence stuff; it’s a middle-class fantasy. Kids aren’t gurus, they’re just kids. I’ve nothing against them (they’re certainly a lot nicer than grownups and generally far better company) but they’re clearly idiots.
Just listen to some of the shite they’ve come out with down the years:
‘why doesn’t Granny’s skin fit her any more?’
‘why does the dog lick its own tentacles?’
‘why does that man have a dead rat stuck to his lip?’
‘how does the child-lock on the windows always know it’s me?’
‘when it rains is that God crying?’
‘is that a man or a robot?’
Absolute drivel… and rude too, most of it. I bet if I went up to a bloke in a wheelchair and asked if he was a man or a robot no-one would say that I say the funniest things. And I bet if I acted like one of those smart-alecky, punk kids you see on American TV shows (the ones with the in-your-face attitudes and slick put-downs who spend their entire lives outsmarting and outsassing their dim-witted parents) I’d get my head kicked in quicker than you could say: ‘talk to the hand ’cos the face don’t give a shit.’
But children, for some reason, seem to be allowed to get away with all sorts of anti-social behaviour.
The 19th-century poet, Robert Pollok, once said: children are living jewels dropped unsustained from heaven.
Personally, I would say they are more like dogs that can talk. By that I mean they are fun, cute and give an awful lot of love but the only thing they can really teach you about is pissing on the living room rug. However, there is one little thing that they are able to do that has the power to unravel any adult to the point of existential annihilation in a matter of minutes and must be the envy of every shrink, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in the world. I’m talking about The Eternal Question.
The Eternal Question is a technique that every child seems to have an intuitive mastery of from birth and, like most things that work, it is ludicrously simple. Basically, the child will ask a question – usually lulling you in with an easy one that you know with complete certainty that you have the answer to, like: why is the sky blue? – you answer quickly and confidently, thinking: that’s the end of that and what a top quality piece of parenting, and the child will immediately ask, why?
You answer again but it’s notably harder this time; the question has suddenly got deeper and more complex. You’re no longer thinking about why the sky is blue but why blue is blue. Eventually you stumble to some sort of satisfactory answer and the child will again ask, why?
Now you find yourself genuinely unsure. You’ve never delved so deep into anything before and from this close in everything looks like nothing. Still, you bullshit your way to an answer (one that usually involves phrases like ‘it just does, that’s why’ and ‘because I said so’) and still the response comes back: why?
This time you have absolutely nothing. You don’t know why anymore.
It is a scientific fact that after four whys even the simplest question in the world becomes virtually unanswerable. In seconds you can go from complete certainty to blank nothingness and not really know how or when it happened. The whole thing snowballs out of control so quickly, just like exponential growth.
Did you know that if it were possible to fold a piece of A4 paper in half seven times it would reach the moon? Or if you put one grain of corn on the first square of a chess board, doubled it to two grains on the second, four grains on the third, eight on the fourth, etc. there is not enough corn in the entire world to fill the board?
The Eternal Question is like that. It's exponential growth in reverse; instead of multiplying you're dividing, dividing your life, your brain, your existence, everything. After four whys you no longer know the answer, after five you find yourself rethinking your entire outlook on the world, after six you realise that everything in life is futile and pointless and after seven (the magic seven, we call it) you reach a point that I like to think of as pure, undiluted truth and you kill yourself.
It goes a little like this:
Why do I have to go to school?
Because you need to learn about stuff.
Why?
Because… when you grow up you’ll need to know about stuff.
Why?
Um… because all the other kids’ll know about stuff and you want to be on a level playing field.
Why?
Because you’ll be competing with them for the best jobs.
Why?
Because the best jobs pay the most.
Why?
Because we live in a world run by capitalists and that’s how they like it.
Why?
Because they like to keep the rich rich and the poor poor.
Why?
Because they’re cunts.
And then, without pausing for breath, they hit you with something like:
Why do bees like flowers so much?
Because they get nectar from them.
Why?
Because… they need nectar for energy.
Why?
Um… because all living things need food to make energy or they’ll die.
Why?
Because they do, that’s why. Same as you, without food you’d be dead and you don’t want to be dead.
Why?
Oh for fu-! Because you want to be alive!
Why?
Because being alive’s better than being dead.
Why?
Suddenly you don’t know why being alive’s better than being dead. In fact, you’re starting to doubt that it is. After seven whys you know that it isn’t and you kill yourself.
So what to do? Well, fortunately we don’t have to put up with the little bastards’ crap any longer because I have the cure and, once again, it’s stupidly simple. Basically you have to nip it in the bud early (certainly a good couple of whys before the critical seventh anyway) and give them a taste of their own medicine by shouting: why not?
In that triumphant, role-reversing moment you fire all the pointlessness of the universe back in their smug little faces and watch in delight as their puny little brains melt in the hot confusion of absolute uncertainty.
Then, you can rest assured, they will either kill themselves or shut up.*
*As they grow older they will find that this choice is more or less the only choice they have with regards to anything they encounter in the world: kill yourself or shut up. Both fine choices.
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