I just ate an orange. A cara cara navel orange. I now have strings from its flesh stuck between my teeth. This made me think of how an orange is (supposedly) a good thing. While I ate it, it was scrumptious. So, it was good for me and delicious. I now have these orange filaments stuck between my teeth and they feel like they are making the space between said teeth, tighter. The strings feel bothersome. But, this result feels like the kind of thing that would happen after having done something that isn’t good for me. You know? Usually, it is supposed that a thing that is bad for you, though it may be wrapped/presented in an enticing way, and may even feel nice (like the taste of the orange), when you face the ramifications for having chosen to do said ‘bad‘ thing the ramifications are typically the filaments between your teeth; you end up with an unpleasant result.
Well, with having eaten this delicious orange and sitting here dealing with its strings, I realize that I am experiencing this discomfort because of how my teeth are positioned. Maybe a person with more space between his teeth would never experience what I have, and the opposite may be true as well. The thing is that I do not have a say-so in how much space my teeth have between them, so I am not really having this experience by choice. Unless… unless I chose to do something that seems to some a bit drastic; like remove a couple of my teeth and let the remaining teeth spread a little over time. So maybe I do have a choice, but it feels that I would have to take a seemingly unnecessary action (knock out some teeth) just to not feel some orange strings.
In the meantime, what can I do about it? In this reality, I choose to use floss, and until then I have distracted myself enough with the potential meanings of this as applicable to life, that I feel these strings no longer.
Although I feel I may be insulting those who have gotten the meaning of this parallel, as a writer I know I shouldn’t assume the reader knows my thoughts. So I will just briefly say that this experience with the orange reminds me of life, decisions we make, good & bad, and how experiences are shaped differently based on the involved participants. Additionally, it may be that what we make of an event is key, not so much the event itself.
Lastly, though I am not saying there is no difference between bad and good, I am asking: What is bad? What is good? What compass do you personally use to determine the difference?
Who would have thought: all from an orange (smile)
Think Say Be 