Life and Origami.

Let’s suppose you’re living a quiet and comfortable life with no fear, no pain, no anxiety, no relationship issues, no injuries, no illnesses, no dread of getting up in the morning etc, etc. And then you’re told that you need to leave home and attend a course on – say – origami. So that’s what you do.

A little way into the course you suddenly suffer total amnesia. You have no idea who you are and no recollection of anything that happened before you arrived at the origami training school. Worst of all – even though you don’t realise it – you have no concept of home whatsoever.

But you’re surrounded by people (and teachers of origami) so you go along with them and do what everybody else does. You eat, drink, have sex, watch football matches, fall over and say ‘ouch’, and so on and so forth. You find yourself constantly wondering how the hell you got here, where you came from, and why origami should be so important, but nearly everybody says it is so you just get on with it. A few people tell you that there is life outside the confines of the school house, but they’ve all got different ideas as to what it is so you don’t know which one to believe if any at all.

And then somebody comes along and takes you into an empty room with a big dark hole in the middle of the floor.

‘Go and stand on the edge of that hole so I can push you in,’ says the one against whose strength you have not the power to resist.

‘Why?’

‘Because I say so. Resistance is useless.’

‘Suppose I don’t want to get dropped into a big black hole. Suppose I want to carry on doing origami.’

‘Your origami days are over. The course is finished. 

'So why did I have to do it in the first place?'

'No idea. Just do as you’re told and stand on the edge of the hole.’

‘Well at least tell me where it leads.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘It isn’t my place.’

‘And what if I refuse?’

‘You don’t get a choice. Come on.’

And then he picks you up and drops you into the hole.

Is that what life’s all about? I’ve always wondered. I wish somebody from back home would give me a call and tell me there are potatoes baking in the oven and lashings of butter waiting invitingly on the table for when I return. That’s if potatoes and butter even exist, of course.