Once upon a time there was a huge city—but really huge. It thought it was the biggest city anywhere, so it called itself World. On the outskirts of this city, there was a garbage dump, which was even bigger than the city itself. Because throughout the ages the people of World had dumped everything there they did not immediately need or already possessed.
The director of the garbage dump was a very shrewd man. Although he was a millionaire many times over, he still looked for ways to earn more money. And selling garbage was one way. There were so many different types of garbage, and the rubbish one person had dumped should be worth money to another. But how does one sell garbage?
One day a little boy was found all alone, lost among the garbage. No-one knew where he came from, and he himself could not tell because his mind was literally a blank He didn’t know how to speak, did not know the difference between garbage and gold, and didn’t even know what money meant. He just was there—well, almost part of the garbage.
But the director immediately saw an opportunity. He hired the most expensive teachers he could find and ordered them to teach the boy. And when they asked him what they should teach the boy, the answer was, “Why, to sell garbage, of course.”
So the teachers started educating the boy. They brought him millions of books from the dump, and the boy—who was very bright, although he had never learned anything—memorized them all and learned to speak as books speak. Then they taught him manners: always speak politely with two words, never argue with a customer, and if the customer does not know what he wants, make him think he wants something anyhow and sell him that. And since they also taught the boy that he should be grateful for the fact that he had been taught all this—actually, they told him he owed his existence to the garbage dump—the boy grew up to be a very knowledgeable, very polite, very humble salesperson, who always had an answer ready. He apologized for anything that did not please the customer—even when it was the customer’s own fault, because he had been told that a customer is always right. He never aspired, because they had taught him that more garbage was the maximum he could hope for. And he was never sore—because when you feel that you ought to be grateful for the fact that you exist and know that you never will be any better off than you are, you have no reason for being cross.
The garbage dump’s director thought he had hit the jackpot and began advertising the boy’s services. You could ask him anything, and he would find it for you. When you were in trouble, he would play lawyer, psychologist, or financial advisor; if you were illiterate, he would write for you; in fact, he would make anything out of the garbage in the dump that he thought you needed. Music from material found in the dump turned jingle writers into composers, YouTubers grew into movie directors by simply asking for some video garbage, and paintings from doodlers who didn’t know how to hold a pencil suddenly became art. The dump became the sole source of creativity for even the most insipid persons of World.
As a consequence, the director saw the dump’s stock prices soar and got even richer than he was. Other millionaires became jealous, and everywhere in World people started looking for more blank, uneducated, bright boys they could train to search through World’s dump. And after a while people thought they had found the answer to life, the universe, and everything—but it wasn’t 42. It was garbage.