We Regret to Inform You

We are aware that you like to think of yourself as being a good person. When you were young, you dutifully obeyed the commands of your father and your mother. You studied hard in school and you did your homework without fail. You went to church every Sunday (and still do), without ever complaining or dragging your heels. You ate lots of vegetables and avoided candy between meals. You did your best to fit in with your peers, regardless of the situation, and never questioned people in authority. You played every game to win, but you always stuck to the rules. Your deepest ambition in life was to be a dependable citizen.

However, things are not entirely as you have always held them to be, and it is time that you were told the truth, directly and in full. We regret to inform you that the sum total of everything you have been taught to believe, from the moment of your birth, is nothing more than a heinous collection of deliberate falsehoods. Without you ever suspecting it, you have, at every stage of your life, been slyly deceived into following a host of childish beliefs that are utterly specious. Your trust has been abused, ruthlessly and repeatedly, by those who were supposedly providing you with wholesome guidance. To put it bluntly, you have been living in a state of profound delusion.

We know that this information is likely to come as something of a surprise, and will not be pleasing to you. It will probably seem, at first, that you have been given a raw deal. It also follows that, as a result of receiving this unfortunate information, you are likely to become extremely unhappy, and perhaps even distraught. We understand how you feel, but you should try to keep in mind that it could be much worse. What if there was actually nothing more to life, nothing more in which to believe and trust, than all the lies that you have been told, and all the lies that you have told to yourself?