Such are the thoughts a person has occasionally, which may be triggered after considering that the only thing required of living is to die after birth. It can be a daunting topic; actually, the topic itself makes life seem bleak, pointless, or worse -- a complete waste of time and energy. However, life is more than two requirements of maintaining life and later on dying. Assuming an organism makes the most of it, life is meaningful. Life is meaningful when going beyond the face value goods, maintaining subsistence and the outward diversity, and seeing life as a journey for a purpose. Clearly, that journey will be long and there will be times where a person will want to take the easy way out, but in those times of weariness, a source of motivation and renewal exists nearby. For me, the source of motivation and renewal was and is food.
Food provides me the motivation and renewal solely as a reminder of life itself. The idea of food being a reminder served me well during freshman year. There were many new experiences and adjustments: living somewhere else for more than a day away from home, living with someone not related to me, and everything being somewhere else even for the restroom (which is also shared and used by other people). Regardless, I had to keep going forward because my family had sent me to one of the best colleges and it didn’t come for free. The pressure was on and was only going to increase when classes started. Will I not have any relief?
With that situation in mind, food came to the rescue. It provided me the time to catch my breath while still allowing me to do what must be done for college without compromising any of it. It was necessary for living and required little thought to apply: “Just sweep the plate and jab whatever into the mouth, repeat,” I would remind myself. However, food only gave me that sigh of relief and even worse, it constantly reminded me of life: “I’m only eating because I need it to function,” I would think to myself. I was digesting food from a dining hall or a restaurant on campus and regardless how well known they were, the taste was simply bland. In addition to the mediocre taste, the food available was generic in the long run – just like life. Each day a person wakes up, does what he is ordered to do, and then goes back to sleep to repeat the cycle the next day until he can’t anymore. That sigh of relief was just simply not enough for me.
I didn’t eat a lot after thinking about the disappointment of an individual life’s significance. Actually, I began to be more absorbed with my homework and broke one of the dining etiquette – bringing homework upon the dining table. It would repeat until one day I had a craving. I wanted Chocolate Rice, which was a dish from my family’s homeland. It is a dish of rice grains drowned in liquidy chocolate. To my friends, Champorado a.k.a.
Chocolate Rice looked odd and perhaps even unappetizing. Regardless, chocolate rice stalked and pestered my mind to no end, no matter how many times I thought it was an illogical demand until the weekend or possibly more if none was at home. Only my stomach seemed to understand as it grumbled endlessly and wanted anything to digest. Thus, I walked into the nearest restaurant, where food’s significance rose to infinity.
The restaurant I had walked in was an Asian buffet and I immediately scooped a truckload of fried rice onto my bowl. Fried rice was generic both in appearance and taste but I kept on eating it even to the point to get another serving. It was the nearest dish to chocolate rice I could see and the small tinge was hinted all over it for some reason. My mind was teasing me with spontaneity both in my mind and on my food.
The rice reminded me of the tale of squaring numbers. A maiden had helped a rich but greedy rice farmer and given the offer of having one of her wishes fulfilled. She requested one grain of rice that night and double the amount the following day, a cycle to repeat for an entire month. The farmer chuckled and agreed blindly; at the end of the agreement, he was whipped clean of his rice.
Quickly and intermixed, the pictures of fried rice, a porridge of chicken broth and rice, butter rice, and even my chocolate rice came to mind.They were all my favorite side dishes, which my grandmother made whenever clueless of what to cook for me. Simultaneously, the dishes of rice were ones the love of my life begged endlessly for. My fat yet adorable Golden Retriever was addicted to rice. Ever since she had joined my family, my dog Jenny
was given rice whenever she was under the weather. The rice bowl was a new delicacy to her as she had only eaten her dog food since birth and would do anything for it. She’d hone on the sound of the rice cooker finishing and stare at any bowls near the area where my father would fix the meal.Memories of home, my family and friends filled the bland bowl before me. It became a bowl of life. Beyond the bowl, it filled the emptiness life seemed to me. It made the life I thought was nothing but endless piles of work important for the instant, to be worth far more. There is more to life than what is before me now and in the future where the fond memories will continuously grow just as the number of people would. No matter how far or when, food will link me to those memories and people who I treasure and wish all the best for them. Thus, I will share and pass on the bowl of life.
Sources of Pictures:
1. Rice Bowl: http://www.trpottery.com/images/pottery-shapes/rice-bowl.jpg
2. Champorado: http://www.1001recipe.com/recipes/food/
champorado_chocolate_rice_porridge/champorado_chocolate_rice_porridge_main.jpg
3. Fried Rice: http://www.chinesefooddiy.com/images/Fried-Rice2.jpg
4. Rice Porridge: http://www.tastyisland.net/images/jook_700.jpg
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