Two of my favorite foods are eggs and potatoes. I can pretty much eat an egg any way it can be fixed (even raw if it's in the traditional Caesar Salad dressing or in an egg cream custard). I love them. Potatoes too. I guess some people might describe me as a "meat and potatoes" type of guy...but I really can do without the meat...but a meal without potatoes...well, that's really just a snack. If you're really a potato fan you'll know what a mashed potato sandwich is...and they're even better on soft, white, potato bread. Mmmmm.
So anyway, I was reading and came across a line that said that compassion is a "soft emotion, easily eroded by circumstance." Unfortunately, I believe that to be true. That's part of what happens when people become, as I mentioned in a previous post, "all prayed out."
By now you're probably wondering, "what in the world do those two paragraphs have to do with one another," or maybe you're wondering if I've finally gone off the deep end, or if maybe it's the Jameson in me that's composing this post...well, if you're not wondering at least one of those three you're probably not paying attention. For the record, if you're buzzed enough that you're not savoring the oak and peat in Jameson you shouldn't be drinking it...you might as well be drinking iodine-flavored swill. And while I may indeed be such a babbling eejit that I'm ready for hospital, those first two paragraphs are related...let me explain.
Eggs and potatoes are, by my estimation, perfect foods. One is almost pure protein and one is almost pure carbohydrate. Both are packed with nutrients. However, they're quite opposite when it comes to circumstance. If you don't know what happens to each of them when placed in very hot water for an extended period of time, try it. Heck, even if you do know what happens to them, boil them anyway...your reward for this experiment is that you get to eat the results. :)
As you'll have surmised, when you boil a potato it becomes all soft and mushy...in contrast, when you boil an egg it becomes firm...I know it's called hard-boiled, but I wouldn't really say it's "hard". If we think in terms of idiomatic expressions, I think most would agree that we are each placed in hot water at one point, or more. So when we're fair boiled, are we more like a potato or an egg? Do we become hard or soft...is our compassion eroded by circumstance?
I think that most people want to be made firmer, tougher, stronger by adversity...Nietzsche said that which does not kill us makes us stronger...but where is it exactly that strength lies? What are you to be, an egg or a potato? I think there might be reasons that one might be one or the other, but I don't believe that it's the water that makes them that way. Hot water only brings out their nature.
2 comments:
If hot water brings out their nature, that implies that the stressful conditions causes them to display their nature.. translate that into a human situation. If we are to be considered as displaying our nature when put under stress.. is that not a very poor reflection of an individual!!!?
I don't think it's a poor reflection of an individual at all. I would posit that it's stress, more than other things in life, that shapes who we are.
Stressful situations have the ability to strip away all of the pretense, all of the unnecessary, inane BS that clutters our lives.
Fire purges, making the slag float to the top where it can be removed, leaving a purer soul.
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