Black Velvet

Ever looked upon the night sky and wondered whether there was anything looking back at you? Okay, maybe not wonder whether anything was looking back, but you might have enjoyed the sound of waves crashing whilst sitting by the beach, gazing into the night sky. With the darkness all around you, it’s as though you were sitting amongst the stars themselves. The sand between your fingers and toes; is that what the universe feels like? Sitting in between the 2 boundless expanses, the universe and the sea, one cannot help but feel insignificant, trivial in the presence of these 2 giants.

“Water, 35 liters, Carbon, 20 kg, Ammonia, 4 liters, Lime 1.5kg, Phosphorous, 800g, Salt 250g, Niter, 100g, Sulfur, 80g, Fluorine, 7.5g, Iron, 5g, Silicon 3g, and 15 other elements, these are the chemicals needed to make 1 average adult human body.” The total cost of all this is USD 2.83. With current inflation and deflation rates, I’m not sure what the figure is. But it does fluctuate around this figure. That’s what we’re worth; two dollars and eighty-three cents. That’s about as much as my Yong Tau Foo in the school canteen. The amount of money used for one meal, can pay for our entire chemical make up. Human beings are made so cheaply and yet this $2.83 will grasp on to life so desperately. When one obsesses about one’s existence, the big picture becomes totally unknown to them.

In strict scientific terms, human beings are just means to pass energy from one source to another. On a long enough timeline, the survival rate of everyone drops to zero. Millions of years are just a 2 cm arrow on a piece of paper. We are inevitably a part of many different cycles. Whether one of us exists or not, it doesn’t really matter. The cycle will still continue its way with or without one of us, or even a few of us. The carbon cycle, the energy transfer cycle, the food cycle, we are all a part of a project that was not started by one of us. The project has existed since dinosaurs roamed this planet. Plants absorb sunlight, herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat herbivores, carnivores and herbivores defecate, providing nutrients for plants, carnivores and herbivores die, providing even more nutrients for plants and the cycle starts from the beginning again. It doesn’t matter if I died today or tomorrow, I’ll still be part of the cycle.

Well people might ask, “If our lives are that meaningless, what is our purpose?” I’ve got an answer to that. Again in strict scientific terms, we exist just to ensure the survival of the species. The common goal of each and every man is to spread his genes to as many females as possible ensuring that his genetic line survives. Our purpose you ask? The answer: To reproduce. It’s every animal’s basic instinct. They copulate with as many members of the female species as possible, to ensure that they will have a lot of offspring so that their species will live on. I must say, with so many human beings falling prey to war, disease, accidents, killing and various whatnots that happen during the course of someone’s life, it’s surprising that we’ve managed to keep a healthy number of about several billion people roaming around on this planet. And that is after tabulations like the Iraq War, World War 2 that claimed about 70 million lives. I must say, human beings are quite a frisky lot. Come to think of it, if those wars have never happened, and if all of us were to die of old age, to quote a classmate of mine when asked about overpopulation, “We’ll be falling off the edge of the continents and into the sea”

“Try to make ends meet, you’re a slave to money then you die.” From what I see, I guess this quote is very, very true. In our society all of us struggle to keep alive from the moment we take our first breath. We struggle to not sleep face down in the cot for fear of asphyxiation; we struggle through school to receive a piece of paper with a couple of “As” on them; we struggle to keep our job, try not to kill our boss and to raise a family; lastly, we struggle to battle whatever disease old age brings us and wonder where our life went. Are we too preoccupied with struggling to survive that we aren’t able to let what truly matters slide? We work hard so we can buy a sofa set for the living room. We work hard so we can buy a 40 inch plasma TV to look good with the sofa set in the living room. We work hard so we can buy a solid marble coffee table to complement the sofa set and the plasma TV. We work hard so we can buy a 13 piece Chinese porcelain tea set so we can sit in the living room, on the sofa set, staring at moving pictures on the 40 inch plasma TV, our feet placed neatly under the solid marble coffee table and talk about the newest BMW to hit the market, or the latest Louis Vuitton or the most fashionable Prada. Please note, everything here costs more than $2.83, in fact, they cost far more than $2.83. We scorn the out of fashion $10 a pair Bata shoes, we wouldn’t be caught dead wearing the 3 for 10 dollars undershirts the elderly wear at coffee shops. No, these $2.83 potpourris of chemicals have to drive $200,000 cars, carry around $200 handbags, and sit on $5000 furniture. Ironic isn’t it?

The privileges we have are not given. They are not our right as human beings. We do not take advantage of what our ancestors have given us and splurge it on ourselves. When was the last time you were thankful for the clothes you can wear, the food you can eat, the hand phone that you are carrying. When was the last time you thought about something else other than your miserable existence? Truth of the matter is, your death would not affect the universe in any way. Your struggle is insignificant to the billions of people that co inhabit this planet with you. The truth will set you free.