The greatest cherry of all time fell off of the back of a truck and was squashed into oblivion by a delivery driver’s moped. If only you could have tasted it, though. The sensation would have been incapacitating. Sweet, but not saccharine, tart but not unbearably so, and juicy without distracting from all that flavor. 

Oh, the flavor. It defied description. “What is happening?” is all you’d be able to ask yourself as the last of it slid down your throat, so delicious you’d have questioned the nature of taste itself, and recalled the experience only as an enigmatic, passing feeling, like an unexpected smile from a beautiful stranger you’ll never see again. 

Somewhere there exists another cherry, one that knows it is definitely not the greatest. Quite the opposite. In fact, that cherry is so preoccupied with its own self-doubt that it has trouble believing it’s an actual cherry. But, really, no other cherry can possibly be the greatest of all time. You can eat them endlessly, but still won’t experience that once-in-an-eternity perfection. 

That’s how it should be. There are feelings you will never feel, insights you will never embrace. The greatest cherry of all time is like the greatest thought of all time; you know, the sort of divine idea that brings instantaneous peace and positivity to all of humanity, reconciles solitude with oneness, and fundamentally ends the process of human thinking as we know it. 

That perfect thought is gone, too. It was written down centuries ago, folded into a paper airplane, and thrown into the middle of the ocean from a boat with no map. It vanished, like the cherry’s dry residue now crumbling off the wheel of that moped.

The greatest thought wasn’t meant to be conceived, only hoped for, and the road to get to it is paved with infinite philosophies and religions. The greatest cherry wasn’t meant to be tasted, only dreamed of and, sure enough, we keep on growing cherries. 

What of the cherry that doubts itself, and every other cherry we know? Without them, there would be no greatest cherry to imagine. Their tastes are the stepping stones to greatness, each and every crispy, juicy one of them and, thankfully, they’re here to stay. Keep trying them. Keep dreaming. They won’t stop, and neither should you.