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Gather around everyone.

Please keep shuffling in.

Make your way all the way to the front, as far forward as you can go. When you reach a row to sit, please move all the way in towards the end of the row—leave no empty spaces.

Sorry? No, we can’t save a seat for anyone arriving late. I understand, but they’ll need to sit or stand where they can. No exceptions.

Don’t worry if you’re not sitting exactly next to someone you know, we won’t be here long.

I see the first few rows are full, great work everyone. If you would rather not stand, you can come all the way down to the front and sit on the ground. You can sit— I’m sorry? Yes, that’s precisely how you should sit, but we don’t call it that anymore. Why not? Oh, my sweet summer child, there are so many beautiful things this world has left to teach you. I envy you.

Look at that, almost all the rows are full. If there are no seats left, and you would rather not stand, please walk down the aisle as far as you can and take a seat on the ground. It’s okay, the ground won’t hurt you. Excuse me? I’m sure your pants will be fine, yes even if they cost that much.

We’re almost ready to begin, before we do— huh? Validate parking? You drove here? You must be new.

Okay, everyone, quiet down now. Quiet please!

You, yes you, the one who mentioned the dirty pants and parking. Please stand. Everyone! This is, what’s your name? Really? Caruedion? Where is that from? Your parents just made it up? Good for them.

Everyone! It’s Caruedion’s first time here!

a roar of applause erupts from the crowd 👏👏👏

Does anyone volunteer to help them validate parking?

laughter bursts from every corner of the room, some boos are mixed in

I think you found your answer, Caruedion. Don’t take it personally, it’s all in good fun.

Okay, I think that’s actually everyone. Let me count, one, two, yes, perfect.

imaginary drumroll 🥁

CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE!!

a silence blankets the room as if a roaring crowd on television was suddenly muted

Ladies,, gentlemen,,, theys…thems, and everyone beyond or in between, welcome. I can’t express how thankful I am to have you all here today. There are times in life when we think we’re gathered for a special reason, and usually, we’re not.

Today, we are.

You’re all here for the same reason. The same yearning, the same desire, the same thirst for something you can’t quite put your finger on. Every morning feels like a new opportunity, but every night ends feeling like that very same opportunity has been squandered.

You’ve traveled, you’ve studied, you’ve listened, you’ve dropped your egos in the hopes that the answer to one of life’s greater mysteries might reveal itself to you. You may have even spent one too many nights in the coop with the chickens themselves, we won’t judge you for that, Erselot.

another wave of laughter erupts. even Caruedion is laughing—though they don’t know what they’re laughing about 😅

Erselot, always such a good sport. I admire your desire to learn at all costs, even if it means doing some of the things you do. Personal risk in the pursuit of knowledge is one of the noblest things we can do. It should never be looked down upon.

That’s precisely why we are here today. Personal risk in the pursuit of knowledge—of answers. Of quelling that burning desire.

We’re all here today to find the answer to that one question that has haunted humanity since 1847:

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?

silence

continued silence

silence grows awkward, people in the crowd begin to look around, what are we waiting for? has the speaker finished? is something wrong?

SILENCE, is precisely what we’ve been given when it comes to actual answers. All we’ve received are jokes, quips, quillets, and distractions for those seeking the truth. All of these amount to, nothing. For too long, we’ve been plagued by the idea that the chicken was trying to cross to the other side. No other reasonable explanations have been given. No other answers have arisen. And few other questions have been asked.

We ask the question, we hear an answer, and most leave it at that. “To cross to the other side.” Most are content living their lives without ever pondering this idea again. But, not you. Not any of you, my friends. You’re here with me, with this special group of people because the mysteries this beautiful world has to offer are much more important than simply taking whatever answer is given.

What could cause the chicken to make such a drastic decision?

Why would it risk everything it has? Everything it’s ever known, for the simple act of crossing to the other side?

Many of you might believe you understand the chicken. You’ve put yourselves in the chicken’s shoes. Not that chicken’s have shoes, do they, Erselot?

nervous laughter fills the rooms, easing the tension

Jokes aside, we’ve all been there. Asking ourselves the very same questions that led the chicken to its fate.

But, why?

What on the other side of the road could be deemed so indispensable you leave everything behind just to reach it?

I’ll tell you what the problem is, we’re looking in the wrong direction.

It’s always the other side of the road, the path that lays before the chicken, and not the path that led them to that very moment. That’s what we should be focused on.

I ask you today not to wonder why the chicken crossed the road. Forget it. It’s not the question nor the answer that matters here.

Dare I say, it’s not even important what’s on the other side.

an audible gasp is heard from the crowd

Yes, precisely! You should be surprised. You should be furious. You should be livid. Today, we are the chickens! Everyone around the world is a chicken. And we’re all just gawking at each other, wondering where we thought we were going when we decided to cross the road. Yet, we conveniently ignore the very road that leads us to that decisions.

Why was the chicken forced to cross the road?

Why does the road even exist?

Is the chicken leaving anyone behind? A family? A spouse? Baby chicks?

A community?

Has the chicken decided to forgo all familial responsibility for the hope of something they’eve never seen? A better future that was promised, but never actually given?

If the chicken had a thriving community, why would they ever choose to leave it?

What could drive the chicken to place itself in such a conundrum?

During my travels, in my studies, and throughout my late night meanderings with fellows of a low moral standing, I’ve wrestled with this idea over and over again—and I’ve continued to ask the difficult questions, at the peril of my wellbeing.

What if I told you the chicken had crossed the roads millions of times before?

They don’t want you to know that. They want you to believe the road was always there, and the chicken was always on one side of it. My dear friends, the chicken was there long before the road ever came to be!

a woman who was standing in the crowd faints

Yes, sister! Let the feelings come over you! Someone, please get her some water! She’ll be fine!

They’ve never wanted you to know. They burned the books and silenced the stories. They chose that specific piece of Earth precisely because the chickens were there! They realized the value of the land, not from what they could learn from it, but what they could take from it. If a land was wanted by so many, shouldn’t it be something special?

But their special is not the special of you and me. Their special destroys the Earth. It makes way for paved streets, cement, asphalt, and all these other fruitions that have come to be from the hubris of man. A man who thinks they’re strong enough to conquer nature, to bend nature to their will. A man who thinks they’re smart enough to decide where a chicken should live and where it should not.

Mind you, the chicken was never asked! Man never bothered to spend time with the chicken. To learn the chicken’s ways. To study the chicken’s history. To understand what brought them to this piece of land that would one day have a road through it.

Has the chicken always been there?

I can say with certainty it has not. We have irrefutable evidence that there were others there long before the chicken arrived. Yet, one day, the chickens arrived. And there was no one. Since then, they’ve been questioned. They’ve been doubted. They’ve even been told they are not entitled to wonder. To wander. To look beyond the road and travel to the other side, a side that was once grazed by chickens near and far with no issues except enjoying the sun, stars, and the sky. A side that was once open and free to roam.

The chicken is merely doing what it was genetically programmed to do, to live. Like all of us. We’re just like the chicken, yet we cannot find it within ourselves to picture what it’s like to live the chicken’s story.

We’re too caught up worrying about what we’ve been told the chicken does. Who they are, what they live for, what they believe in and what they don’t. Most would say all of those things don’t matter. They’re only chickens, why should we care what they believe in and what they don’t? Because a chicken is not a human, we’ve decided it doesn’t deserve our humanity. That it should stick to what we consider it useful for.

We’ve been told the chicken is free to roam as long as it roams within the space we’ve decided it can roam.

Why?

Why do we get to decide?

Who gave us that power?

What if a chicken told you where you were allowed to go. Would you be pissed off?

a man stands in the back, I DON’T TAKE ORDERS FROM DIRTY, BAREFOOT CHICKENS

the crowd roars in agreement

I feel your passion, my brother! I admire your resilience! But what has the chicken ever done to you?

the crowd falls silent again, the man looks lost, his eyes wandering aimlessly as the faces of the crowd stare back looking for an answer, a rebuttal, an idea they can get behind—he has none

Don’t be ashamed! I’m not here to shame you. I’m not here to say you’re wrong or right. I’m simply here to question, to wonder, to make you think.

It’s only natural for you to not want to take orders from the chicken. There’s nothing wrong with feeling like that. I posit this question in return: If you would rather not take orders from the chicken, why should the chicken take orders from you?

the crowd remains silent, nods of agreement, some eyes wander looking for more answers

You see! You’re all starting to understand! The chicken is merely following its innate drive to walk, to wander, to LIVE. This thing that propels the chicken, it has a place deep inside all of us. Inside ourselves. This thing, this feeling, is so beautiful, so worthy, so overwhelming with light, that we believe we’re the only ones who can feel this thing. We’re the only ones who can understand what’s right and what’s wrong.

I dare say this: You’re not the only one who feels that way.

Every single person, every single chicken, every single being across the known world feels that exact same way. Some might say that makes the feeling unremarkable. How can it be so special if billions of beings feel the same thing? It’s just another everyday occurrence.

I would say to them, that’s precisely why it is so special. Because we all feel it. Because we all live it.

Man, woman, person, chicken.

We are not as different as we are told we are. We may have different physical features, dress in different ways, pray to different deities, and hold different values. But we all shine, we all have the overwhelming desire to live, to thrive.

When we question why the chicken decided to cross the road. When we diminish what the chicken has lived through, all the experiences, thoughts, feelings, doubts, and even questions the chicken has asked, all the things that have brought the chicken to this very moment. The moment we take for granted. A moment we consider a joke—something far away from us. A dilemma we’ll never face, not really, because we’re not the ones standing on the edge of the road. We’re merely seeing this happen from leagues away. From a “safe” place.

When we forget the humanity of the chicken standing there, deciding. When we forget, that the very same fate lives within each and every one of us. A fate that we might never reach, or we might, who knows? It’s out of our control. Just like it was out of the chicken’s control.

Even though we share that same innate feeling hidden somewhere deep inside our psyche, we can’t bring ourselves to empathize with the chicken. To understand. To forgive. Even though there is nothing to forgive. For the chicken did nothing wrong, merely attempting to cross a road it had no agency in building.

When we forget that it could easily be us standing there, and the chicken where you are now, laughing at the same question from their perspective: Why did the human cross the road?

That’s when we lose the light. The humanity. The beautiful thing we’re all endowed with from the Creator. And when I say Creator, I don’t mean God, like a religious God. But if that’s what it means to you, that’s okay! We all see it differently. But we all feel the same light. When I say Creator, I mean the universe. Everything that is bigger than us, grander than us, all the questions we’ll never get to answer that make this beautiful world what it is.

The humanity of getting the chance to open our eyes in the morning, take a deep breath of air, remember that we are alive and lucky to be here. When go through all of that and forget that merely doing those things is a gift we’ll never be able to repay—that’s when we go down a road there’s no coming back from.

That’s when everything we cherish so deeply begins to fall apart. No matter how hard we try, no matter how many justifications we have, there’s no going back when we decide to dim our light as well as the lights of others.

When you leave this place today, I ask of you one thing. One simple thing.

Stop asking the question.

Stop looking at the chicken like it’s the one who is at fault. The one who needs to explain themselves.

Instead of asking why the chicken crossed the road, we should ask:

Why was the chicken even forced to cross the road in the first place?

the crowd is silent, they’re stunned, they’re confused, they’re not sure if their minds have been blown away or if it’s just another long rant that said nothing. is this it? is there no better explanation? a more concrete answer?

a delicate strip of unease fills the air, waiting to be shattered by the first person to speak. to respond. to say something, anything!

I see you’re all figuring what to say, what to think. That’s okay. You don’t have to find all your answers right now. Just make sure that in your pursuit of knowledge, you ask the right questions—and never stop asking.

Now, Caruedion, we actually do validate parking. Come see me, and I’d be happy to assist you with that. And, please, on your way out, don’t forget to click the ad link at the bottom, it’s the only way we can keep this venture going without charging you a thing.

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