Monday 27 July 2009

A piece of euphemistic cake


Imagine. You are given a cake right at the beginning. It’s made of many parts. You are told you can have as much as you want. The portions will never diminish, no matter how much you eat. But you will also never know when any of the portion will run out. It will happen, that’s for sure, but you won’t know when or where. So, basically, you either will have a whole piece all the time, or have none of it, all of a sudden.

The cake is free. And you never asked for it in the first place. It was just presented on a palate to you. And you gratefully accepted the offer. And started digging in.

But right on cue, all of a sudden, a part disappears. And you can’t no longer eat that one.

Then you grieve.

Why? You were given a seemingly fair deal. But now you cry over unfinished desserts. Just because you got attached to it, you forgot the arrangement. Not fair.

So, again, why does death affect us humans so much? Not so much our own, but others' around you. Loved ones. Friends. Family. They are the pieces of our lives that we were savouring unabashedly. And what? Hoping they will everlast? That was never the deal. And you knew about it right from the word go.

It isn’t grief unless it’s unexpected.

The moment we begin sleeping with this thought, we will be a happier species. In the knowledge that before the cake was ever served, or even the plate was moulded, we were but little wisps of undifferentiated nothingness.

Unfortunately, we are not wired that way. We make our cakes mobius-strips of human emotions and relationships. So that every crumb becomes a mandatory piece of contentment. Hence making its depravation irreconcilable.

Being such complex moist robots that we are, that sleep is never going to happen. So we will continue anguishing over snatched portions, right up until our own plate is taken away from us. Without comprehending the fact that we can eat our cake, but can never have it.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think its because we are dependent on our loved ones for eg: if a child looses his father or vise versa...:)

btw y suddenly talking abt death??

Gayatri said...

this analogy works with everything in life. death included. wish we could all be buddha one day. loved the last line. a refreshing take on a proverb i never really understood.

slash\\ said...

@Gautam. It was just a topic i was planning to write on for some time. Nothing recently personal.

@G: This analogy works for death. As for life. Guess what we cut to celebrate birthdays?

aarti said...

well i agree with gautam.

Slash tell you the truth. i love what you write alwaysssssssss. i have never commented on it though.:::))))

Kokonad said...

Mobius strips of human emotions and relationships! *WoW* That's got me thinking! That's an excellent analogy! :)

Grayquill said...

Eemotions are they logical? or illogical? Loss is loss...and however we humans do loss is normal. And yes we always surprised. Who can comprehend death?

slash\\ said...

@Aarti. Thank for dropping by.

@Koko: Have always been fascinated with the Mobius band. Seamless infinity was never this cool or simple.

@Grayquill: That was the point. If loss is normal, why are we surprised? Or are we just getting used to the abnormal? About comprehending death, what if we consider death too, like life, as a journey? Mandatory embarkation for all, of course.

mnraj said...

might be we are so use to them that one fine day we hear that they are not there any more in our life

Jandy said...

you grieve because you expect the cake to outlast you - and if it doesn't - the hole the cake leaves is much bigger than the piece itself.

slash\\ said...

Gosh Jane. The void that defies laws of conservation is a very scary but true line of thought. Funniest part is, in between all this, you fail to realize that you too are part of someone else's cake. And the intersections are infinite.