Wednesday, March 01, 2006

forrest schmorrest

Forrest Gump's mother said, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
Upon closer examination, though, the unpredictability aspect of the metaphor almost seems the least interesting. If life is indeed like a box of chocolates, is it also rich, fattening, extravagantly packaged, over-priced, and hard on the outside/gooey on the inside? Or is it that life, like chocolates, is something no girl ever really wants to receive?
In reality, the essence of chocolates is marketing. Boxing chocolates is essentially the process of re-packaging in guilded cardboard the tiny chocolate packages of sickeningly sweet substances that only taste good in very small amounts. Is this what life is? Something we've been conned into desiring?
If you ask me, the better metaphor is pancakes. Cheap, flat, monotonous, deceitful. Delicious in anticipation, but never quite living up to expectations. They are, ultimately, predictably mediocre.