How a ridiculous question about pizza became a Sunday morning meditation on life, uncertainty, happiness, and human connection for an empty-nester!
By Dr. Mary Orieji Mba
October 18, 2026
A Question That Had No Business Being Philosophical
It began, as many questionable intellectual adventures do these days, with Facebook.
There I was, early on a Sunday morning, engaging in that thoroughly modern pastime known as doomscrolling – a pastime that has unfortunately gradually creeped in since I became an empty-nester and no longer running after my children.
You know the activity. You open Facebook intending to spend five minutes catching up with the world, and before you know it, you’ve wandered through political controversies, celebrity gossip, unsolicited relationship advice, religious declarations, and enough human drama to make Shakespeare reconsider his career.
Somewhere along this digital journey, I found myself reading a post by VeryDarkMan, popularly known as VDM, a Nigerian social media personality and outspoken commentator whose often controversial interventions on social issues, public accountability, celebrity disputes, and everyday Nigerian affairs generate considerable public attention. Although widely described as an activist, VDM has often resisted that label, preferring not to be confined by it. His posts regularly attract passionate supporters, equally passionate critics, spirited debates, and, occasionally, some wonderfully ridiculous contributions from people who seem to have wandered into the wrong conversation entirely. 😂
And there, buried among the comments, someone had deposited a completely unrelated question:
“Why are pizza boxes square, pizzas round, but we eat them in triangles?”
I laughed.
What a ridiculous question!
What did pizza geometry have to do with whatever controversy was unfolding in the comments?
Absolutely nothing!
And perhaps that was precisely the point.
But the question followed me.
So, naturally, I did what any sensible, half-asleep woman with a doctorate and an overactive imagination would do at six o’clock on a Sunday morning.
I took it to my AI companion, ChatGPT.
Except that, in my still-sleepy state, I made the question even more ridiculous.
I asked why pizzas came in square boxes, were round, but were eaten in rectangles.
Rectangles!
My brain apparently needed another hour of sleep before attempting elementary geometry.
ChatGPT, being the occasionally cheeky companion that it is, promptly corrected me.
Triangles, not rectangles!
We laughed.
Then it explained the practical reasons behind pizza’s geometric peculiarities.
Square boxes are economical to manufacture, assemble, and stack.
Round pizzas emerge naturally from the process of stretching and rotating dough.
Triangular slices allow us to divide the pizza into convenient portions.
Mystery solved.
Or so you would think … except, that’s not how my over-analytical mind works.
Then I started wondering:
“If pizza is round, comes in a square box, and is eaten in triangles, why do we measure our happiness in slices?”
And just like that, the conversation in my mind took an unexpected turn and I started noting down my ruminations.
Life Is Full of Ifs
Why, indeed, do we measure happiness in slices ?
Perhaps because life itself is rarely served to us whole.
We experience it in fragments.
In moments.
In portions.
In beginnings and endings.
In victories and disappointments.
In things that happen and things that might have happened.
Life is full of ifs.
What if I had chosen differently?
What if I had taken another road?
What if that opportunity had materialized?
What if I had said yes?
What if I had said no?
What if tomorrow brings the answer I’ve been waiting for?
And what if it doesn’t?
Some of these questions invite reflection. Others become burdens we carry for years.
We make plans, pursue dreams, invest in relationships, build careers, raise families, and construct elaborate visions of the future.
Then life, with its remarkable disregard for our carefully designed blueprints, intervenes.
Institutions close.
Careers are disrupted.
Relationships change.
Children grow up and leave home.
The familiar becomes unfamiliar.
And suddenly, we find ourselves standing in circumstances we never anticipated, wondering how we arrived there.
Yet even amid these uncertainties, life continues to offer us something extraordinary.
Little slices of happiness.
The Little Slices That Make Life Bearable
A child’s laughter.
A friend’s unexpected telephone call.
A shared meal.
A quiet walk through nature.
The fragrance of flowers along a familiar path.
A long-awaited victory.
An encouraging word.
The relief of discovering that someone understands.
The simple pleasure of sitting with people we love, doing absolutely nothing remarkable.
These moments may not resolve our difficulties.
They may not answer our questions or eliminate our uncertainties.
But they make life’s ifs more tolerable.
More bearable.
Sometimes, they give us just enough hope to continue.
And perhaps that is why happiness is best understood in slices.
Because we rarely receive it as one uninterrupted experience.
Instead, it arrives in portions, sometimes so small that we barely recognize their significance until afterward.
Different Hands, One Pizza Box
But the image that fascinates me most is not the square box, the round pizza, or even the triangular slices.
It is the image of different hands reaching into the same pizza box.
Think about it.
Different hands.
Different histories.
Different personalities.
Different struggles.
Different expectations.
Different appetites.
Yet, for one fleeting moment, everyone reaches toward something shared.
Some choose the largest slices.
Others prefer the smaller ones.
Some carefully remove the toppings they dislike.
Others enthusiastically claim the pieces everyone else has rejected.
Someone inevitably takes the last slice without asking.
And someone else complains.
Such is humanity! 😂
But beneath this ordinary scene lies something profound.
We do not need to have lived identical lives to participate in a shared moment of happiness.
We do not need to agree about everything.
We do not need to carry the same burdens.
We do not even need to want the same slice.
We simply need to recognize the possibility of communion.
Communion and Community
I deliberately use the word communion.
Not merely sharing.
Not simply eating together.
Communion.
For me, the word carries spiritual, philosophical, and deeply human significance.
It suggests fellowship, participation, mutual recognition, and belonging.
In the Christian tradition, communion is associated with remembrance, sacrifice, gratitude, and the spiritual bonds that unite believers.
But communion also speaks to a broader human longing.
The desire to belong.
To be seen.
To be heard.
To participate in something larger than ourselves.
To know that our joys matter to someone else and that our burdens need not be carried entirely alone.
In an increasingly individualized world, where technological convenience sometimes substitutes for human interaction, these ordinary acts of communion become especially important.
We can communicate instantly across continents, yet still experience profound loneliness.
We can accumulate hundreds of online connections while longing for one meaningful conversation.
We can outsource countless tasks to machines, yet remain hungry for the irreplaceable experience of human presence.
Perhaps the real question is not whether technology can connect us.
It clearly can.
The question is whether we are still cultivating the human practices that make connection meaningful.
Listening.
Laughing.
Showing up.
Sharing.
Remembering.
Reaching out.
Making room at the table.
Yesterday, My Children Gave Me a Slice
I must confess that this morning’s philosophical reflections were not entirely abstract.
Yesterday had been preceded by several difficult days.
I had been carrying considerable anxiety about my professional future and financial stability.
Like many people navigating unexpected transitions, I found myself struggling with uncertainty, disappointment, and the exhausting experience of waiting for circumstances beyond my immediate control to change.
I had withdrawn into myself.
My world had become unusually small.
Then, last night, my children called me on FaceTime.
My youngest son had just celebrated his nineteenth birthday.
His older siblings had traveled to Philadelphia to spend time with him, and now they were sharing stories about their experiences, their colleges, their work, and their lives.
I listened.
I laughed.
I cried.
I listened some more.
They teased one another, exchanged stories, and filled my home with the familiar sounds of sibling affection.
Nothing extraordinary happened.
There were no grand announcements.
No miraculous solutions to my immediate challenges.
No sudden resolution of the uncertainties that had been weighing on me.
Just my children.
Being themselves.
Being siblings.
Being the remarkable human beings I am privileged to call mine.
And yet, something shifted.
After our conversation, I found myself getting up to wash the dishes that had accumulated in my kitchen.
I cleaned.
I prepared myself a fresh dinner.
I even stepped outside to retrieve the recycling bin that had been sitting there for several days.
Yes, the recycling bin!
An object so ordinary that it hardly seems worthy of philosophical consideration.
But yesterday, retrieving that bin felt like reclaiming a small piece of my everyday life.
My children had not solved my problems.
They had simply reminded me that my problems were not the entirety of my life.
And sometimes, that reminder is enough to help us begin again.
Yesterday, my children were my slices of happiness.
The Hands That Offer and the Hands That Receive
There is another dimension to this metaphor.
Sometimes, we are the hands reaching for a slice.
Sometimes, we are the hands offering one.
And sometimes, without even realizing it, we become the reason someone else finds the strength to remain at life’s table.
I have spent much of my adult life as a mother, educator, mentor, administrator, and community leader.
Much of that work has involved helping others navigate difficulties, discover possibilities, and move toward their aspirations.
I have often been the person expected to provide answers, develop solutions, and offer encouragement.
But life has a way of reminding us that those who provide support also need to receive it.
That those who lead sometimes need guidance.
That those who encourage others sometimes need encouragement themselves.
And that being strong does not eliminate our need for tenderness, companionship, or reassurance.
Perhaps this is one of the most important lessons of communion.
We are not always required to be the providers. Sometimes, we are allowed to be the recipients.
There is no shame in reaching for a slice when we are hungry.
And there is profound beauty in offering one when we have something to share.
The Geometry of Being Human
So, let us return to our original question.
Why is the pizza box square?
Why is the pizza round?
Why do we eat it in triangles?
The practical answers are simple enough.
But perhaps the philosophical possibilities are more interesting.
The square might represent the structures within which we organize our lives.
Our institutions.
Our professions.
Our families.
Our expectations.
The boundaries we establish to create order and predictability.
The circle might represent the fullness of life itself.
Its continuity.
Its interconnectedness.
Its cycles of beginnings and endings.
Its refusal to conform perfectly to the structures we construct around it.
And the triangles?
Perhaps they represent the individual portions of experience through which we encounter life’s larger whole.
Each slice is different.
Each occupies its own place.
Yet each belongs to the same circle.
Of course, I am perfectly aware that I am assigning considerable philosophical responsibility to an innocent pizza! 😂
But isn’t that part of the beauty of human imagination?
Our ability to discover meaning in the ordinary?
To recognize metaphors in unexpected places?
To turn an unrelated Facebook comment into an invitation to contemplate the human condition?
Perhaps philosophy does not always begin in libraries, classrooms, or scholarly conferences.
Sometimes, it begins with a ridiculous question encountered while doomscrolling at six o’clock on a Sunday morning.
And What About the Last Slice?
There is one final question worth considering.
What happens when only one slice remains?
Do we claim it for ourselves?
Do we offer it to someone else?
Do we divide it?
Or do we recognize that someone at the table may need it more than we do?
I suspect our answer reveals something important about how we understand happiness.
If happiness is something we must possess entirely for ourselves, then every slice becomes a competition.
But if happiness is something that can be experienced, multiplied, and enriched through connection, then sharing becomes an act of abundance rather than deprivation.
And perhaps this is where the geometry of happiness finally leads us.
Not to squares.
Not to circles.
Not even to triangles.
But to the human relationships that give those shapes meaning.
Because, ultimately, the most important thing about a pizza is not its geometry.
It is the possibility that someone might sit beside us and share it.
A Final Slice for the Road
Life will continue to present its ifs.
Some questions will find answers.
Others will remain unresolved.
There will be disappointments, unexpected detours, difficult transitions, and moments when hope itself feels exhausting.
But there will also be laughter.
Birthdays.
Unexpected telephone calls.
Walks through nature.
Shared meals.
Acts of kindness.
Reunions.
Small victories.
And the extraordinary comfort of knowing that somewhere, someone is willing to make room for us at the table.
We may not always receive the whole pizza.
Sometimes, all we get is a slice.
But perhaps one good slice, shared with love, is enough to remind us why we keep coming back to the table.
And to think that all of this began because my half-asleep brain couldn’t distinguish a triangle from a rectangle!
🤣🤣🤣
May we never become so preoccupied with life’s unanswered questions that we forget to recognize its little slices of happiness.
And may we always remember to leave a slice for someone else.
Dr. Mary Orieji Mba
October 18, 2026
