The Skeptic and the Hallway

A fictional story about how searching for truth can ruin your belief and make it stronger

“Allegories drawn to great length will always break”
— Samuel Johnson

Imagine your beliefs are a classroom. A normal classroom, with high windows looking outside into a lush green yard, with tall, swaying trees. Inside the classroom there are six rows of eight chairs and desks, all facing a wall covered from end-to-end with a whiteboard. On the adjacent wall there is a door with a window opening into a hallway. In this classroom you are taught a subject, a single subject that never changes. In this instance the only subject to be studied are the works of William Shakespeare. Day after day.

The purpose of focusing singularly on William Shakespeare, is to understand every facet of his life and work, and ultimately to gain perspective on humanity and the meaning of existence through those works. Outside of the classroom — though you are “free” to do what you want — there is a negative stigma related to taking any other classes on any other subject that does not first get filtered through the works of Shakespeare. In order to fit in with the others, and not upset your teacher, or disappoint your parents, or incur the wrath of William Shakespeare himself , you comply.

Year after year, decade upon decade, Shakespeare is all that you learn and study. Though there are different teachers and different textbooks with differing opinions on his work, there is no deviation from the central focus.

One day, while looking out the classroom windows, you begin to wonder what others might be learning, down the hallway in the other classrooms, that might help inform your view of the world and humanity and everything. You decide to ask a few of your classmates if they’ve ever gone into the hallway and into other classes. Some students scoff at the idea, some are horrified and strongly discourage you from even thinking about such things, while a few others talk about classes they took but found no value in them. But you sense there has to be more than just what you’re being told.

You walk to the door, put your hand on the door handle and look back toward the class. You hear a spattering of different students call out “you’ll never be welcomed back into this room again”, “good luck”, while just a few say “come back whenever you wish”. You decide to open the door and wander into the hallway.

The hallway is dark. There are no windows, only a long corridor of other doors to other classrooms. The hallway is empty and quiet, with no activity, and no other people except you. As you walk past the other classrooms, you gaze into them through their small windows; some are full of students, others sparse, some have their doors wide open, others have their windows completely covered. You knock on a door of a classroom that is labeled “History”. The door opens quietly and a man welcomes you come and sit and learn.

There you learn about other people writing during Shakespeare’s lifetime; like Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Nostradamus, and Leonardo da Vinci. As time goes by, you read about different eras from different authors; about civilizations and wars and people and inventions, all of which offer you deeper insight into humanity, the world, and existence. Soon you want to learn more about other subjects, maybe math or science or art, and you wander back into the hallway.

As you continue down the hallway, into new classrooms on new subjects, the further you feel from where you began. You find that as you learn, your views on Shakespeare have changed. Your understanding of him and his work has become more full, yet somehow less assured, because assurance brings more comfort and peace than uncertainty. But there is no unlearning or denying what you know. Your heart sinks, not because you regret what you’ve learned or fear that everyone was correct about leaving, but because you feel as if you have no home. You mourn, wondering if you’ll ever find your way back.

As you begin to reflect more and more upon what you know, coupled with all you’ve learned since leaving, you develop a stronger sense of who Shakespeare was, what he was saying through his writing, and how it can apply to humanity, the world and our existence.

You walk back down the hallway, towards where you began. You stand outside the door, peer through the window, and gently knock. Inside you notice some students turning their backs, while others give you confused and sad looks, and a few students motion for you to come inside. As you open the door, you walk toward those that welcomed you back, and sit next to them. As you begin to talk with them, you learn that they too have journeyed down the hallway. They talk of how many students leave and never come back and that they miss them terribly, while others, like them, have traveled, learned, and returned. You confess that you’re not as interested in Shakespeare as you used to be, but that you want to be, as long as it doesn’t mean having to give up all that you’ve learned since leaving.

Your classmates reassure you that regardless of how you might feel, that the search is worth it, and to continue.

But you remain skeptical. And that’s exactly as it should be.