Although every career takes unexpected turns, the twisting path for mine, pilgrim Truth’s, has surely been the strangest. I’m serious. Of course I admit I’ve usually managed to hold down a steady job. For millennia religion was a regular gig, sometimes very lucrative. The costumes alone were wonderful. Then the best of times came rolling along: science. There was nothing like those lavish productions of space travel, those poignant dramas of modern medicine. But that’s the good news. Let’s talk about lean times. There was serious unemployment when the bloody Skeptics suggested certain knowledge was impossible. Almost shut down the run entirely. And don’t get me started on that miser Descartes. Sure, he called back after the audition, but then what? All that work and he cut my part to one line. The 60’s, as you know, were nuts. American sociologists made a huge deal about reality being “socially constructed”, whatever that means. Suddenly I was in a casting call with every stunt double from the rain forest. Two deep breaths and say hello to the pesky postmodernists, smoking Gauloises and blabbing to the tabloids about “hegemonic narratives”. I had to wear sunglasses. Hide my assets off shore. But the unkindest cuts come from one’s children. Isn’t that always the way? I’ve often regretted hooking up with those computer geeks from California. Nine months later and along comes baby Internet. I had such high hopes for the child. Maybe, even, the democratization of knowledge! Please. The kid sits around the house all day, being vicious to strangers and passing along fake news. And then . . . and then . . . one of my best friends stabs me in the back. Yes, that’s right, the Oxford English Dictionary. Without so much as a warning phone call, the OED announces “post-truth” as 2016’s international word of the year. Post-truth? Seriously? Try getting a job in this town now. Maybe it’s time for Plan B. I think Sherlock Holmes had the right idea. Sherlock of course is not Truth himself, but he’s a close friend of the family. What would he do in this situation? Retire to Sussex and keep bees.
I also wanted to go into medicine, but over time I realized that management was closer to me. The choice of profession should be based on practical benefits, as I see it.
