Not so recently, I discovered this semi transcendental perspective with regards to life's experiences.
The perspective is basically life is like a cauldron of sorts and each experience(be it perceived good or bad) is a way to cook aspects of our nature, turning raw qualities into refined qualities over time.
Now, there's an intensity associated with fire which mirrors the unpredictability of reality. I think a good basis point for both is recognizing their neccesity in the maturation process.
If I'm being cooked by this cauldron of life, then I might as well understand how to handle the fire/intensity. Provided I first know why am I being cooked or what's the purpose of this cooking.
Why am I being cooked, really?
Is it because there are gross aspects of myself that need to be shed in order for more refined aspects to emerge or could it be that the process itself is the purpose, and not some end state?
Short digression, my mother prefers eating food items raw, provided that option is present. She argues it is that state one can harvest the most benefits from the food item, given it is closest to its natural state.
I personally do not have that preference, even after I've read somewhere a long time ago that one of the primary reasons we cook our food is to make it easier to digest by our internal system.
Generally, cooking is a refining mechanism, breaking down complexity into digestible simplicity.
Another aspect of cooking is that it's a transformational mechanism, turning a base substance from one state to another.
I think from the latter aspect of cooking is how being cooked by life is more to be understood.
For one, unlike modern cooking with precise temperature controls, a cauldron suggests something more primal and unpredictable, much like life itself. The fire beneath it fluctuates, depending on factors that aren't easily discernable.
In its raw state, food retains its original integrity but may not release its full potential. An "uncooked" person can maintain a kind of pristine authenticity but miss the transformations that heat and pressure can bring.
For the most part, I think we have some agency in this cooking process. We can, to some extent, regulate the heat.
When life's intensity grows overwhelming, we're instinctively drawn to want to "jump out of the cauldron", to escape through denial, numbing, or a justified retreat.
I'm part of the camp of people who'll rather just analyze the heat rather than feel it fully but insufficient cooking over time leaves us partially transformed, neither raw nor fully realized, caught in an unsatisfying in-between state.
Age seems to naturally increase our capacity to spend time in the cauldron. A child's brief tantrums seemed like a quick jolt of heat that passes quickly but leaves little lasting transformation.
The elderly on average tend to display a tenderness and wisdom that comes only from long, slow cooking, where the most stubborn aspects have finally yielded to the persistent heat of existence.
Now, coming back to the question of why am I being cooked. I think a basic answer is to become more fully what I already am at my essence. My ordinary mind may not always grasp the reason for prolonged exposure to difficult circumstances.
Interestingly, the fire doesn't add anything new to the ingredients(aka my inherent nature), it merely reveals and reconfigures what was always there.
This tells me on another level that I'm both the food and the cook at the same time, in the sense that my awareness of the process is itself part of the transformation.
The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire, says Ferdinand Foch.
Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.
