I have been contemplating just lately, that life is very much like a lasagne, metaphorically speaking. I know that the old saying goes, life is like an onion, and follows through with some stuff about peeling back the layers, but when you peel back the layers of an onion, really what you get is, well, more onion.
But lasagne, when you start to peel back the layers, lots of things can happen - for a very first step, you can get your fingers burned! To me the whole layers metaphor works much better with lasagne than it does with onion. Start peeling back the layers of a lasagne and the whole darn thing might fall apart, or at the least, get fairly messy. Life is like that, right?
Well, my life (and from the outside, those of others) can be compared to a lasagne, I think. It works for me, and I'm going to run with it. Take frozen lasagnes, well - all prepackaged lasagnes really, for another example: they look really darn good on the package in a lot of cases, the gloss is great, the blurb says it all, succinctly and deliciously - but when you get it home, even if you do follow the instructions to the letter, the result is usually a disappointing and fairly flavourless serve of lacklustre muck that lacks any real substance or taste. Is your life like that sometimes? Do you know people like that perhaps?
The other thing is that lasagne can really describe a vast range of experiences, all the way from the solidly delightful and traditional lasagne alla bolognese type affair through to the gluten free, vegan, macrobiotic experience and along all sorts of spectrums in between. And, even once you have the baked dish in front of you - how it gets served up, accompanied, seasoned and consumed is still up to the individual. That's life, right - it all comes down to the individual experience. Even within a family with everyone in the household getting pretty much the same option for a mealtime sitting, one will dine and dash, sans the salad .... one will do the whole dang lot, with all the trimmings, and go back for a second helping every time, one will pick and flick and fuss and eventually partake of their favourite bits and leave a bedraggled mess for someone else to scrape at cleanup time and so on and so forth.
Well, that's life. Life is like lasagne: a highly variable, quite unpredictable in some circumstances, sometimes vegetarian (and sometimes for some people, not), sometimes sloppy, messy, grey, greasy and disgusting, and sometimes perfectly delicious, absolutely mind-blowingly amazing affair.
So - this is my lasagne project. It's time for me to seek out and experiment with and perfect the absolutely perfect balance of layers, fillings, seasonings, toppings, heat, dish size, accompaniments etc for my life. I'm tired of cafeteria slop. I want the real deal - be it spinach and ricotta, grilled pumpkin and eggplant, or filled with traditional ragu, I want my life to be real, to turn out OK, and for me to be the mistress of it. Bring it on!
But lasagne, when you start to peel back the layers, lots of things can happen - for a very first step, you can get your fingers burned! To me the whole layers metaphor works much better with lasagne than it does with onion. Start peeling back the layers of a lasagne and the whole darn thing might fall apart, or at the least, get fairly messy. Life is like that, right?
Well, my life (and from the outside, those of others) can be compared to a lasagne, I think. It works for me, and I'm going to run with it. Take frozen lasagnes, well - all prepackaged lasagnes really, for another example: they look really darn good on the package in a lot of cases, the gloss is great, the blurb says it all, succinctly and deliciously - but when you get it home, even if you do follow the instructions to the letter, the result is usually a disappointing and fairly flavourless serve of lacklustre muck that lacks any real substance or taste. Is your life like that sometimes? Do you know people like that perhaps?
The other thing is that lasagne can really describe a vast range of experiences, all the way from the solidly delightful and traditional lasagne alla bolognese type affair through to the gluten free, vegan, macrobiotic experience and along all sorts of spectrums in between. And, even once you have the baked dish in front of you - how it gets served up, accompanied, seasoned and consumed is still up to the individual. That's life, right - it all comes down to the individual experience. Even within a family with everyone in the household getting pretty much the same option for a mealtime sitting, one will dine and dash, sans the salad .... one will do the whole dang lot, with all the trimmings, and go back for a second helping every time, one will pick and flick and fuss and eventually partake of their favourite bits and leave a bedraggled mess for someone else to scrape at cleanup time and so on and so forth.
Well, that's life. Life is like lasagne: a highly variable, quite unpredictable in some circumstances, sometimes vegetarian (and sometimes for some people, not), sometimes sloppy, messy, grey, greasy and disgusting, and sometimes perfectly delicious, absolutely mind-blowingly amazing affair.
So - this is my lasagne project. It's time for me to seek out and experiment with and perfect the absolutely perfect balance of layers, fillings, seasonings, toppings, heat, dish size, accompaniments etc for my life. I'm tired of cafeteria slop. I want the real deal - be it spinach and ricotta, grilled pumpkin and eggplant, or filled with traditional ragu, I want my life to be real, to turn out OK, and for me to be the mistress of it. Bring it on!
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