There is a legend of a wall that existed long ago in a city. It was one of those castle-y type cities surrounded by walls made out of stone. More of a town really.
The wall on the south side of the town was the tallest, thickest part of the enclosure. For years it protected the city from invasion from the southern adversaries. The townspeople, over the years, had turned this trusty wall into a monument of sorts.
The walls were covered in reasons. Little tid-bits of paper, stuck onto the stones or between the cracks, with reasons scrawled all over them. Reasons to get married, reasons to become a black smith or a baker, reasons to have children, or go to war, or sing a song.
The most common one was unspecified; "Because I'm ready".
Soon the reason wall attracted outsiders. People from all parts of the world would visit and read the reasons people had for living their anonymous lives. Visitors were also allowed to add their reasons to the wall.
The most common one for them, was why they came to the wall; "I needed to know why".
Centuries past and the wall became filled with reasons. Reasons to buy a cat, reasons to fill a prescription, reasons to order Chinese food for dinner.
But the wall was old and tired of carrying the burden of people's choices. It began to fall apart-- brick by brick. A wall of crumbling confirmations.
People began to live listless lives. Not knowing why they did things, they stopped doing them. The wall was giving up and why shouldn't they.
That wall had protected them. That wall had bravely carried the weight of all their confirmations for hundreds of years.
And all the stones eventually rolled away. And all the little pieces of paper blew away. And a gas station was built in it's place. Because the people needed fuel, now more than ever, to keep going on with their lives.
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