History, Literature, Philosophy. These are my subjects. I am a COL major. That’s right, I’m one of them. And I like it, too. A lot. History, great. Literature, fantastic. Philosophy… well, philosophy I’m not so good with. I just don’t get it. It’s too ethereal for me, I think. Too idea-dependent. I’m not so good with things that have no physical manifestation. I like to use my five senses. I like to keep my intellectual feet on the ground.
But about three years ago on a warm Thursday night, in a fairly seedy bar in the seedier section of the exceedingly seedy city in which I then lived, I was introduced to the one philosophy I can really get my head around. It’s called Pamism.
The school of Pamism is named, as all good philosophies are named, for its founder, J.M.A Pam. I am, I believe, the only disciple of Pamism at present. For the future, however, I dream of a greater Pamist world, a Pan-Pamism, if you will. It is my hope that one day Pamist thought will bring comfort to those in need all over the world. I also hope Pam didn’t steal his philosophy from anyone. He can be tricky that way.
The founder of Pamism is the same Pam I wrote about last time, my friend who recently dated Satan’s younger daughter. This week, Pam has been too busy building sukkahs in Wales to have any more interesting dates, and three years ago he wasn’t dating at all. He was with me, standing at the bar, waiting for drinks, when suddenly Pam turned to me and, in the highly cultured British accent he delivers so precisely when drunk, said, “You are an onion. Yes, Nance, a big smelly onion.” But then he explained.
An integral notion to Pamism is the classification of people into three groups: apples, oranges, and onions. These are not ranked categories. One is no better or worse than the others. They’re just different. And everyone is one or another.
Apples are the most rare type of person. Because apples are so straightforward. They have a little skin, some manners, a few turns of phrase they use to get by in the world, but apples have no pretense. They just are what they are. Simple people. Enlightened people. There are some bad apples, of course, but most are pretty good. And if they have some brown spots, they don’t hide them.
Oranges, like apples, have a strong meaty center. But you can’t tell if an orange is sweet or sour until you peel away the skin, and orange people have a lot of that. The skin is their mask, their façade for the world; underneath they’re something completely different. They’re sweet in spite of the sour peel, or vice versa. They depend on their skin for protection. They hide their essence, their fruit. They keep it safe. Oranges have their reasons. We all do.
Oranges are rare, too, though. Not as rare as apples, but still hard to find. Most people are like me. We’re onions. We’re these big bulbs with paper-thin skins and enticing scents. And we think there must be something inside us that smells so good, some inner fruit, like the orange under the peel. So we start stripping off layers. First our masks, the skin. Then the first layers, the ones everybody knows about. Then more. And more. And some layers are thinner and some thicker, and some smell better than others. But we keep peeling away at ourselves, searching for that core, that essential we. And in the end, there’s nothing left. There’s layers strewn around, and the scent is still there, but there is no core. We have nothing left but the layers. And the tears we cried peeling them away.
But if we’re lucky, if we’re smart, we let our noses lead us. That scent isn’t from some central thing. It’s from the layers. Every layer we’ve peeled away has value. And if you believe that, you too must be a student of Pamism.
I believe it. Absolutely. I know an apple, actually. Only one. We went to school together until we were fourteen. We were friends. We still are. Not because we’re in close touch. We’re not, really. Not because we keep running into each other. We don’t. But my apple doesn’t care. Things are simple to him. Friendship is simple to him. His friend is his friend, and he would lie down in a road for me, even if we haven’t spoken in months, even if it would squish him to applesauce. He’s not perfect, my apple. He’s been kicked around some. He’s a little bruised. But he’s still who he was way back when. All the way back to kindergarten.
I know a couple of oranges too. And a lot of onions. Every one of us aspires to appledom. But I admit, life is hard. We’re not all strong enough to sustain bruising and stay sweet. So some of us build that thick skin. And some of us peel the bruised layers away. And I would never say that those are bad things to do, because skins and layers are what make life interesting. But it’s true: the layers do make us cry. We just have to cherish each one. Each layer and each tear.
That’s my philosophy. That’s Pamism. It was then, suddenly, standing at that seedy bar, and it is now, sitting in front of my computer. I can get my head around that. I get food.
But it does make me kind of hungry.
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