BEFORE GILLETTE: THE SERIOUS JOKE OF EXISTENCE

Existence is serious, but it has a strange sense of humor. We arrive without instructions, spend years inventing procedures, and leave before the manual is approved. Humor does not reduce seriousness. It prevents seriousness from becoming a monument to itself.

The person who cannot laugh at time eventually becomes its employee. A joke can expose a truth faster than an argument. It enters through the side door while philosophy is still looking for the entrance. Eternity is sometimes a serious idea wearing a ridiculous hat.

Eternity does not begin when time becomes endless. It begins when a decision, a page, or a work refuses to expire.