Nomulous Blog

There is an old and probably made up story about a university-level philosophy final, where every student was given a thick booklet of paper, and printed on each was no more than the shortest English question in existence.

“Why?“.

They had all been up until the wee hours of the morning for weeks beforehand in preparation for the test, reading the life works of various mental revolutionaries, memorizing textbook definitions of the philosophical jargon, and searching for long and flowery words that made them sound like they knew what they were talking about. Every face in the room had bags under the bags that were under their eyes.

Except for one tall and lanky dark-haired man, sitting cooly in the corner, seemingly deep in thought. While the others were wiping the sweat from their brows, he looked as if he were lost in some sort of metaphysical space of his own. And so he was.

About ten minutes into the exam, this mysteriously cavalier man picked up his pen, and quickly scribbled two words on the first page  of his booklet. He then got up and left, without saying a word. The other students looked at each other, dumbfounded, but concluded by themselves that he had found the exam to be impossible and ridiculous, and had simply given up rather than attempting to play their professor’s games.