I like profound statements
Punchlines that actually pack a punch

I have this thing I do, sort of like a forceful, invasive habit.
This is how it happens: I am reading a book, seeing a movie, listening to a song, or even engaging in random conversations. I hear something that strikes me as profound. My stomach gives a tiny lurch and something snaps inside me. The air freezes around and everything pauses, while I am groping for a pen or mobile device to write what I've just heard.

This is it, my forceful, invasive habit; I always write random quotes that strikes me as profound, sometimes against my will and better judgement...

I think of sharing some of these quotes every now and then, see if they elicit the same kind reaction in people as they did in me. A good number of times, they don't.
The problem is, my idea of profound is actually quite weird. In my defense, I seriously doubt there is a universally acceptable standard of what could possibly constitute a profound statement. Although I have no doubt that my proposed standard, stomach lurch and inside snap, would be roundly and universally rejected.

So, I'm weird.
Not exactly earth-shattering news...

I draw up a ranking from time to time, a ranking of these profound statements, and depending on my mood, the quotes adjust themselves accordingly.
All of them, except one

On every ranking and rating I’ve drawn up, there is the one that has never shifted positions. The one that has been the number one since the day I heard it

I like profound statements
I heard this one in the summer of 2021
(Technically, there are no summers in Nigeria. There is the wet season and the dry season, with a fierce harmattan wind forcefully annexing an unenviable chunk of the dry season)
Poor geographical referencing aside, I’ll never forget that day, that conversation, or the person I had it with

Chima the truth is, no one really knows, we all have to be told.

This is the most profound statement I’ve ever heard
Let me tell you why

Suppose I tell you about my faith
How do I really know what I’m telling you is the truth?
I don’t! I read it in a book
But how do I really know this book isn’t mere fiction and the product of an hallucinatory mind?
The truth is, someone told me, convinced me that I could trust this book

Sounds silly?
until you flip it

Why do you not believe?
Someone told you, convinced you that it wasn't worth believing in
Perhaps you think it not to be so. Perhaps you say, "I heard this thing once and decided it wasn't for me".
But the thought process by which you arrived at the decision was learnt.
Learnt and imbibed from the books you've read, songs you've heard, movies you've seen, your experiences and the people who shaped those experiences...

None of us really knows
The only way to know for sure that there is no afterlife is to die
Anything else, we all have to be told...