Ms. Secret Knowledge and Her Suitors.

Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful youth: elegant, charming, with willowy limbs and an agile body. The youth’s gender was quite uncertain, but it does not really matter for our story, especially in today’s day and age.

What mattered, however, was that both men and women, especially the older ones, found this youth extremely attractive. I would find her attractive too, and for reasons of my own psychological make up and innate conservatism, I am referring to the youth as “she” and “her,” but let me assure my readers that the story would change much, had you decided to call the youth – “he” or “they.”

The youth’s actual name was Conspiracy Theory, but nobody knew that except her parents. For most of the people, she was known as Secret Knowledge. Why was she so appealing and enticing, you might ask. The answer is rather obvious. Everyone who approached her saw in her the fountain of youth; being near her, touching her guaranteed one’s feeling thirty, if not forty years younger. In short, she was for the rest of us, what the attractive girls of Epstein and Maxwell’s brigade were for the rich, famous, and depraved.

You can imagine the glow on the faces of those whom Secret Knowledge would visit occasionally. They were triumphant. They beamed. They would compose and post the most convincing narratives, explaining the secret foundations of all our woes and miseries. They would attract followers who wanted to bask in the secret knowledge obtained by the successful suitor of Secret Knowledge, they would rush to share it with others, feeling attuned to the most hidden melodies of the universe.

None of that would last, however. Secret Knowledge was as flighty as she was beautiful. She would leave her lovers at the dawn of day, reminding them of the song composed in her honor by the most famous poet of his generation: “Goodbye, Secret Knowledge, who can hang a name on you, when you change with every new day, still I’m gonna miss you.”

Of course, nobody can blame Secret Knowledge for her flightiness and endless quest. She was never satisfied with a current state of knowledge, and always wanted to dig deeper and know more.

But what happened with her furlong suitors, who were left with nothing once she left? Not exactly with nothing, I would say. They had their memories of what she has revealed to them, and they would stick to these sacred memories for the rest of their lives. Adorning them, multiplying and diversifying them, replaying them in different keys and doing their best to express their sudden revelations obtained as the result of the one night stand in the most beautiful and convincing terms – and that would keep them going for the rest of their lives. Of course, there were other reasons behind their endless activity. What if I adorn the story of the night so beautifully, that Secret Knowledge would find it so convincing and charming, that she would want to return. Vain hope of course, but it is the type of hope that had been feeding jilted lovers for generations, so who am I to mock it?

Innocent as this activity of Secret Knowledge’s suitors was, it had an ugly side as well. In their passion for elusive youth, they became extremely jealous and dismissive of other suitors. It was only their narratives that testified to Secret Knowledge visitation. The rest were dismissed as deep fakers. She never visited them! How could she, such a beauty, visit such a pathetic old person? Consequently all their stories and all their secret knowledge was mocked and ridiculed.

In other words, the abandoned suitors devoted their time to the double activity – adorning their randomly obtained grain of secret knowledge and dismissing all other grains and all other people who were cherishing them.

Did Secret Knowledge know of the negative effect of her actions? Most likely not. She was devoted to the never-ending quest, the quest that would never leave her content, but would keep her forever changing, so she didn’t really had time for all those she left behind and their vain and vainglorious activity. 

As for the rest of her admirers, they remained bitter old men and women, forever clinging to their glorious moment of touching a mystery of the universe, forever trying to convince others of the truths they’d obtained, and forever mocking their rivals for being immoral, stupid, uninformed, and biased. They all remained convinced that only they possessed that secret charm that would make the rendezvous with Secret Knowledge possible, and that therefore all others claiming to embrace other secret mysteries of the universe were fools at best, and liars at worst.