Frank's onion-layered perspective on Life, the Universe and everything Insignificant

What one person does in his day to day life has got a lot to do with his entire macroscopic view on Life itself (and what he had for lunch), and to understand me better, you'll need to know that my onion has 4 layers (and, of course, what I had for lunch.)


This is not my lunch today. Or any other day.

LAYER 1
The first layer has direct effects on day to day operations, and it is a transient truth that can, and should, be taken at face value. Going too deep will eventually hit the next layer below to emit obnoxious tear-jerking gases, so don't try. It is none other than the alltime favourite mantra of living - gasps now - 'THE WORLD SUX'. Murphy Brown-ish, yes.

Simple truth to everyday living. THE WORLD SUX. Period. It is reflected around me all the time: The bus just left (groan); more work to be done? (groan); mouth ulcers (groan!); back-stabbers and takers (moan); no gf (hmm...); no parking space; friend comes late for appointment (grrr...); paper cuts (ouch!); lousy TV shows (expected?); no money (always); pimple outbreak; misplaced keys; the baby from next door who patiently decorates your walls with his crayon set; bird shits on you, on your presentation day..... and the list goes on. Life at this level is filled with imperfections and sucky situations that everyone wishes otherwise. If there's anyone who has a firm grasp of this eternal truth, it would be Marvin.

LAYER 2
Past layer 1 is an altogether different flavoured layer - a layer that smells of hope , improvement, and everything cheerful. It is a layer that believes with efforts invested, things can change for the better. Alrighty, so the world is sucky, but that doesn't mean that we can sit around and mope till kingdom comes, eh? Things can change. Heck, if our ancestors can start off with one smart alec who 'went where no one had gone before' by climbing down the tree, we can do better, can't we? We're a generation that pride ourselves on creating pepsis, cokes and brain-freezing Slurpees, so how bad can things get?

Not exactly the best of buddies

With luck and sheer determination, we can find that elusive parking spot; we can also engage in SMSes till the next bus comes along, if I happen to be addressing a member of the non-driving population. And you'll find your gf/bf. =)

Sheer will power

LAYER 3
I believe in alternating my flavours, so this layer's a tad bit bitter. It is none other than the truer than true mantra of Life, Non-life, and Everything Half-alive and/or Half-dead - NO MATTER HOW YOU TRY TO IMPROVE YOUR SITUATION, IT IS EVENTUALLY USELESS and/or MEANINGLESS.

You'll still face a lack of parking spot the next time you drive in Orchard; your next bus will still be later than the usually mythical 'usual timing'; the kid next door will be grow up to be a belligerent artist who experiments with paints at your expense (heck, he may even be your kid!); there is no such thing as a lifetime quota for birdshits on your head.

Polly wants a cracker after crapping.

There's only so much that you can do with your life, and in the end, perfection is out of reach for all of us. We can die while trying to attain perfection, but utopia is always out of reach for us. We will find all that we've done to be meaningless chasing after the wind, a pursuit of vanity in life's vanity fairs, a seed sowed and lost in a field of lallangs. Yes, even the human loves we have (agape love; storge love; philia; and romantic love) are transient and meaningless when extrapolated to the grand purpose of life. And of course, the incompleted assignments dued 2 days before are inconsequential to most things when held in such comparative comparisons.

What we can do is to make our own pathetic meaning in this short period of time we have left in this world filled with imperfections.

LAYER 4

...is the glue that holds everything together, and it's not the number 42. This would be akin to gravity (it's weak in real life compared to the other forces, but it's the only force that transcends over timespace fabric.) It would be the knowledge that everything will come to pass, and one day you'll be alright. It really doesn't matter even if you're a bankrupt that has gone through 5 divorces, 15 retrenchments, or even the vietnam war; have a hideous looking face that not even a mother could love; have several botox jobs . Your feet will be set on ground once more, and whatever you've done will not change this fact.

Everything will come to pass, and imperfections will be set right. So, don't fret even if you just got fired. One day we will be alright.