On a timeless spring day somewhere on the north side of Chicago a middle-aged man walks into a synagogue. He is obsessed with the end of the world – meteors, viruses, and, if his son is correct, the impending zombie apocalypse. He is also vaguely troubled by the increasing evidence that most of the universe is dark matter. He finds his rabbi, or rather, the rabbi he remembers from his childhood, a tall puckered old man with eyes like nebulas, and asks, “What is the meaning of the universe?”

The rabbi turns to the middle-aged man, who he remembers as being an urgent and finicky boy years ago, and asks, “Have you read your Torah and Talmud?”

“Yes.”

“Have you read your Darwin and Dawkins?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And your Camus?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Hmmmm,” the rabbi ponders out-loud, “this is a good question. Rosenblum from Rosenblum’s World of Judaica Incorporated on Devon used to have a good answer for this one.”

“Well then?”

The rabbi is overwhelmed with the question and takes a seat. He doesn’t say anything for a few minutes and in that time the middle-aged man fears that the world will indeed come to and end and his question will never be answered.

The rabbi finally furrows his eyebrows and says, “I will tell you what Harold Ramis’ rabbi told him.”

“The comedian Harold Ramis? From Ghostbusters?”

“Yes. That’s him. Also, the director of Groundhog Day. Best philosophy film ever by the way.”

“And you’re going to tell me what his rabbi told him?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” the rabbi answers and continues, suddenly excited, “he told Harold Ramis that he should take two pieces of paper. On one he should write the following words: The world was made for you today. On the other, he should write: You are a speck in the universe. The rabbi then told him to keep the two sheets of paper and go on living his life.”

“And this is the meaning of the universe?”

“Did I mention that Harold Ramis directed Groundhog Day?”

In a great city, people walk around thinking that they are both great themselves and also that their lives are pretty much incomprehensible and senseless – a speck of dust floating by an empty storefront window. In Chicago, our great city of Americana, people do this on a daily basis. In the City by the Lake, we live in a deep reservoir of philosophical dysfunction. It is nearly impossible to ride the Western bus or walk down State Street without spotting dozens of people who look as if they are deeply and sincerely confused about their own greatness and also about the impending doom of the universe and their miniscule place in it. Chicago has this effect on people. It’s a city where, if you play your cards right, you’ll be remembered. It’s also a city where you can spend your days and nights lost in a labyrinth. We are all part Augie March, part Studs Lonigan. Our skyscrapers reach for the empyrean; our taverns are full of dust. And, between it all, we wander, poor philosophical Chicagoans!, perplexed by the meaning of it all.

That is why when you find yourself in one of these Chicago induced moods it is paramount, much like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, to find a place and stay there until you figure it out. It is important to have a place, a physical locale that gives the illusion of permanence (because, in Chicago, few things are permanent), in order to dive into the deep questions of the universe. So, when I start to feel a little like Bill Murray, I go where he did – the Old Town Ale House in Old Town, where permanence reaches ages back to the year of its opening, 1958, and where canny comedians and generally funny people from Second City across the street gather with old-school on-the-blockers to get seriously and hilariously drunk and metaphysical. It is not uncommon to find ex-pat Iowa newbies and North Avenue regulars debate the merits of falling in love on a Friday vs. Sunday. Or to hear a satirically large and bearded waiter, who spends his nights serving the gentry down Wells Street, entice the bar with a story about loss and vengeance and memory. And if that’s not your thing, if you’d rather sit at one of the raised tables near the opaque windows at the front of the bar and silently consider your greatness and your inevitable fall into nothingness, prompted, no doubt, by a sweet Chicago boricua or by the loss of a less-than-ideal but still necessary job, then that’s OK too. Old Town Ale House is the perfect place for that sort of thing. Without having to say anything to them, the bartender and the patrons will understand exactly why you’re there. And when you come across a particularly strenuous ripple in the universe and need a break, you can spend some time in the bar admiring all the licentious art on the wall, painted by the bar owner’s husband, Bruce Elliot. Among the dozens and dozens of portraits of regulars, his work features half naked and fully naked people wonderfully fondling each other and catching each other in the act. These images are Chicago as the original licentious city. These images also evoke Chicago’s dual fascinations for sex and politics – the ghosts of the Everleigh sisters and Big Bill Thompson come back to haunt us in dry, comic form. (One of the artist’s latest ingenious creations is a butt naked Blagojevich readying for a prison cavity search.) And when you’re ready to leave, liquid-eyed and smirking, you can take the bar’s philosophy and art lectures with you. You can take its raw politics, its heartbroken shrugs, its unfinished stories, and walk right down to the lake. A few people might already be there, waiting for the sunrise. (And, if it’s spring, as it is now, and if you’re lucky enough, a storm might roil the lake and charcoal clouds might turn the city into a contour or suggestion of the city. Or an invisible city.) And you can wait with these strangers – a half-asleep cab driver, a teenage couple, and a calm and patient fisherman. Each whose own greatness and senselessness, like yours, are already in question. You can wait with them until the sun rises, a monstrous sun, or a sun verging on monstrous. And, when it does, a razor-thin moment will cast the entire lake and the entire city into a simple and endless shade of cerise. And, of course, you’ll yell, “Aha! Universe. I caught you in the act! You wonderful, naked, sly piece of shit. Harold Ramis’ rabbi was right! This morning will be different from the last. This morning the potential for greatness and dust will linger most.” And you’ll realize that you can in fact fight against the nothingness that will sweep us all away, and that really, you have no other choice.

Photo by Flickr user Stuck in Customs