Being as Onion: A Heideggerian Parable

Mark C. Watney watches Martin Heidegger's kitchen encounter.

- MARK C. WATNEY

Tears seeped through the onion's flaky skin as it sat in misery before Herr Heidegger. "I just cannot seem to find myself!" the wretched root cried out.

"What is it you wish to find?" Heidegger gently asked.

"The purpose of life!" whispered the vegetable.

"And where have you been looking?"

"Well, I've been peeling back the layers over the years..." "And?"
"Layer after layer..."
"I see..."
"...After layer. After layer!"
"And?"
"And I found..."
"Yes?"
"I found..."
"Say it!"
The onion was in desolation on the couch, overcome at last by the deep sobs which shook his peeling bulb, a picture of ontic-centered misery: “Nothing! I found nothing!” he declared. “Herr Onion,” Heidegger replied. “You have discovered an incredible truth!” “What do you mean?”

“You ARE nothing – that is the truth. You have peeled your self to the core and found no thing there. It is the greatest and hardest of truths , to discover our own fallenness and emptiness as ontic-roots. As individual bulbs, we are all quite meaningless.”

“Where then is meaning?”

“You must throw yourself, Herr Onion, into the finest pot of soup you can find. As an onion-in-the-soup, you will discover your true identity. As you care for the soup, as you fill the entire pot with the flavor of onion-ness, you will experience an incredible authenticity.”

“But… but… I just want to be me!”

“Ah, but it is in-the-soup, Herr Onion, that you will become your truest self. Out-of-the-soup you are an angst-riddled, wretched little root, of no value or purpose – an ontic-oddity.”

“But… but… the knife!  The boiling water!”