How would you define a layer? We come across layers on a daily basis – different types of layers and yet if you were to ask Google to define it, here’s what it’ll tell you: “single thickness of usually some homogeneous substance” – quoted from the Princeton Wordnet.
Take a look at an onion. What’s it made up of if not for layers? It’s just layers and layers of ’skin’ – if you may call it that. Look at most fruit – that’s got skin covering it. That’s a layer too right? An apple, an orange, a banana, a mango, a grape? They’ve all got different skins – different texture and thickness – but they’re all serving the same purpose – protecting what’s on the inside. What if we were to look at a jambu? Or “wax-apple”/”love apple” as it’s also apparently known? That doesn’t have a skin at all! For those of you who have been fortunate enough to partake in the delight of having these love apples with a mixture of salt, pepper and chili powder (it doesn’t get more Sri Lankan than that) would know that all one needs to do is pluck them from the tree, rinse them in water (to be safe) and bite right into them. No skin to deal with or anything.
Now, what if we were to look at ourselves as individuals. How many of us have layers? How many of us use this abstraction of layers to portray a certain image of ourselves? I would say a lot of us do. Some may be onions, some may be grapes or mangos or bananas or orange or apples and then there’s the other extreme of people who are jambus!
The next natural question that we may be able to ask ourselves is: Why? Why is it that we put this facade in front of who we actually are? Imagine if everyone in the world was their actual selves to everyone they met. What a difference it would make. You would meet a person and you’d know then and there that you either like them or you don’t. That’d be pretty good I would say. It’d save us a lot of trouble (and/or heartache) and you’d have maybe fewer, but more genuine friends. But then again, how many of us like that? How many of us do we find out there, who if aren’t surrounded in heaps by people pledging their support in whatever endeavor you’re about to embark on, would rather die than live? These people just have to have these so-called “friends” around them – irrespective of their authenticity or their ulterior motives – and sometimes I wonder to myself “do they even realize they’re being played for fools?” Then again, I have been told (and also realized for myself) that not all people are as ignorant as they seem to what’s happening around them. But that’s only a select few who happen to be lucky enough to be on this side of the story. How about the other side? Where people have been deceived by con-artists who claim to be oh-so-loyal friends? I would classify such con-artists as rotten mangos if you asked me. And their victims? Jambus! But again. Why?? The only logical explanation for this that some people just get a sadistic pleasure out of playing other people for fools and making complete and utter use of them. And as for the people who do get fooled – there are but two kinds. One such kind would learn from what has happened to them and be more careful the next time. How about the other kind? They would spend days crying over what has happened to them. Feeling absolute fools for letting it happen to them. And then just go and allow it to happen all over again! In many instances against true friends’ advice – I might add.
We’ve now covered fruits with no skin and moved on to those rather evil, single-skinned fruits. So how about the multi-skinned variety – the “Onions”. They are people, and I have been fortunate enough to only have met the good ones, who wear their layers as but a protection from the immorality of the world. They are people who when they meet someone for the first time could either be reserved and timid – or even wild and crazy. But deep inside, they’re someone completely different, who might or might not have been hurt before and are therefore cautious about the image they project to the outside world. Onions are generally the sensitive kind who are careful about letting people get close to them – simply for the fear of rejection or ridicule. Once an onion does peel off all its layers and reveals what’s inside, those to whom the revelation takes place need tread with caution as the amount of trust placed in the person by the onion is not easily paralleled. Should that trust ever be broken – so is the association. As once those layers come back on, nothing can ever remove them – the reason being that the trust is given but to a few. And betrayal is one of the main reasons for the layers in the first place.
On a closing note, if you were to look at the world as a whole, we’ve got all sorts of people living in it. There’re heads of state, diplomats, ministers, clergy, drug lords, arms dealers, CEO’s, Chairmen, directors – and then there’s us common folk. I would say that in life, one does have to present to an audience only an abstraction of ones self – a layer – and they have to do this to be accepted. Not because they liked it, but because it was either their job and/or their lives depended on it. The world isn’t yet ready to accept people for who they really are and I don’t think it ever will be. But that’s what makes it such an interesting place to live in. So what do those people who don’t want to be taken for a ride do then? Listen to your intuition. People’s body language tells a lot about a person’s actual intentions – and it doesn’t just talk – it screams! Always remember:
“Your eyes are the windows of your soul”
– anon
