By Gene Aronowitz
To Be or Not to Be
I was supposed to sign and submit a Certificate
of Existence in order to
receive the pension that I
earned from many years of work.
Whether I exist or not is a perplexing
metaphysical question and, if I didn’t need
the money, I might have declared that the me
who’d get the pension did not exist. Ignoring
that belief , I sped straight to a notary public who
scanned my driver’s license, and signed and
sealed the absurd Certificate. I wondered,
while walking back home, why the notary
was even necessary. The pension
people could have asked me if I thought
I existed and, wouldn’t “yes I think
so” have been sufficient?
What would René
Descartes say
if you
asked
him
that?
