Hi there,

Things, inanimate objects, have their usefulness. They are used up and then thrown out when their reason for being is no longer there. The jar is made and given it’s substance, mayonnaise. A lid is twisted on the jar to keep the substance in. A label is stuck to the jar to give it a name. The mayonnaise jar is delivered to a store and placed on a shelf for a person to pick it out, pay for it, and take it home. Humans are created and their substance, their soul, is in them. The baby human is delivered, given a name, and the baby goes home. The parallel exists between the mayonnaise jar and the person.

With each day, a person is exposed to new experiences that can be good or not good. Just like the mayonnaise jar is left on a counter top forgotten, a person may be neglected. Or the mayonnaise jar could be handled carefully and some of its substance is used to add flavor into recipes or sandwiches. Investing time with another person may benefit both people. A lesson in life might be learned or there might be a sense of joy and a happy memory made just from the time spent together.

Time passes and age catches up with all humans. If a life is not challenged by an addiction to alcohol or drugs, life is usually spent with family and friends. There is no feeling of isolation, just like the jar could be used again and again in a home holding canned fruits or vegetables. With an addiction, the person may take on a different personality and family and friends find it difficult to be around the addicted person. The person feels the rejection and gets kicked out of the family circle. A jar found to be useless could be thrown out into the garden where it may or may not be used again to water plants. Dust and dirt cover the jar so that it becomes sunken in the ground and unrecognizable just like a person who becomes so wrapped up in an addiction no longer looks or acts like the person he or she once was.

Does an inanimate object such as a jar feel? New things are fun. It is fun to go to a store and buy something new. Using something tasty brings pleasure. If a thing gets dirty, it gets cleaned. However if a thing becomes neglected, it becomes dirty and worn. To suddenly have attention paid to it and be cleaned up, would not that feel good to anyone or anything? Personifying the mayonnaise jar and comparing it’s life to a man’s life who suffered from an alcohol addiction makes the story simpler. By reading the story of the jar, the effects of being rejected can be grasped. Reading how the jar and the man are brought back into the family, the jar and the man’s reason for being are appreciated.  “All our separate fictions add up to joint reality” Stanislaw Lec.

See ya later,

Lula Phine

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