“Meaningful goods here. Come get your prepackaged meaningful goods here.”

The traveling salesman caught my attention. “What kind of wares do you sell sir?” I asked as I approached him.

“The most important kind, of course. I sell the thing that all people seek in their lives.”

“Which is…?” I asked incredulously with my voice trailing.

“Why meaning of course! All higher level beings want it. Ever since your ancestors could contemplate their own existence, their place in the cosmos, and their own mortality, meaning has been essential to human existence.”

“How do you sell meaning?”

“It’s pretty simple really, each good is a prepackaged narrative along with feelings of significance which correspond with that narrative. These can help a given human to stave off truly pesky and painful questions like: Is there a point to existence?”

“Well is there?”

The salesman scratched his head. “Heck if I know, but with these packages you won’t need to find out the answer to that question in order to live your life.”

I scowled. “Well with all due respect, you’re selling junk goods if it turns out there is meaning in the universe, right?”

The salesman stammered for a moment, then regained composure. “Listen here! People, really desperate ones I might add, come to me. I don’t question the nature of their requests but it’s clear I’m helping them out of a deep existential bind. Regardless of if these are real or not, what does it matter? I’m doing good aren’t I?”

“Wait, what’s the catch?”

“Absolutely nothing friend.”

“Well, you have to give up something in order to have your goods, right? You’re a salesman after all, you’re not a charity giveaway.”

“Alright, alright, okay.” The salesman yelped. “You’re such a pushy one you know. You have to give up your autonomy, you have to give yourself to the idea 100% or you can’t have it. You have to be unwilling to change once you accept it.”

“Are you selling these for someone else? You’re basically having people pledge allegiances you’re having people give up their freedom to someone right?”

The salesman looked really impatient, if he hadn’t been. “I’m not at liberty to answer that. Look are you going to buy something or not?”

“Why should I?”

“What!” The salesman huffed. “You come to me to waste my time…?”

“No, no, no. I mean sell me.” I interjected. “You’re a salesman right? I’m not completely closed off to the idea, but I need to know more; I need to know why I should get one.”

“Of course.” The salesman replied, now calmer. “Everyone wants to know why.”

I smiled as a sign of good faith.

“Well you know those thoughts that keep you awake at night? Gone! Just one minute with one of these will dispel whatever existential malaise you have. No more sudden, frantic realizations of your mortality. No more concern about where humans came from or where they’re going. No sir, no teleological concerns whatsoever. And finally the moment of your death will be calm, assuming you don’t die violently, as you’ll already have made peace with your mortality.”

“What packages do you have?”

“Well my biggest package, one that’s frankly sold billions, with a b, simply known as The Truth. At the cost of complete loyalty to a universal master of your choosing, or maybe your own creation, you can rest easy. This package comes with the works. I’m talking about a guide book that tells you how to live life and why it’s meaningful and rote responses to all of the big questions. It’s honestly one of my better packages. Side effects might include wanting to share The Truth with others and thinking poorly of or wishing ill on those who do not believe.”

“Yikes, that last part is terrible!” I exclaimed.

“It is, but what are you gonna do?” The salesman said shrugging. “Besides it’s not guaranteed behavior.”

“What other lies are you carrying?” I teased.

“Please don’t call them that. I know that you were joking, but seriously don’t.”

“Sorry.”

“The next one is simply called success. It’s a package that comes with high self esteem and the belief that material possessions, economic obtainment, and companionship as valued within the sociohistorical context which you exist is intrinsically meaningful.”

“What?”

“You’ll believe that the more stuff you have and the more people like you, the more meaning your life will have.”

“Oh.”

“I have a similar one I like to call egoism. It will impart the idea that you can beat mortality and meaninglessness as long as you do something memorable and your name is recorded in rotting tree pulp covered in marks from a liquid like substance that can be read by future generations.”

“That one sounds kind of boring.”

“Oh, then you’ll hate procreation or messiah complex. You’ll believe you can beat mortality and meaninglessness through producing offspring who will themselves die or by saving other carbon based lifeforms who will also eventually die.”

“Do you have…” I paused, hesitant and not exactly sure what I was looking for.

“I have dozens more, just say the word and I’ll share others.”

“No, I’m looking for something… Specific. But I don’t know what I want.” I said with a straining of my lips.

“Oh. Well then maybe you need my Everything You Can Get package. It’s a packaging of all the packages packaged in any way you’d like. None of these are mutually exclusive you know.”

“I want something that won’t make me, you know, dependent on external validation.”

“Ah I can’t help you there friend.”

“You have to have something, weren’t you just bragging about having dozens more?”

“Sure, but absolutely none of them work that way. If you’d like to make your own then sell it to me to sell to others then there’s an option.”

“Well, okay then. Thanks for your time.” I said as I walked away.

“Wait that’s it?” The salesman asked. “You can’t leave. You haven’t made a decision. What are you going to tell everyone when they ask you what you value?”

“I guess I’ll just wing it, like I always have!” I shouted as I walked away.