Cake

One of the more mystifying cliches encounter on a regular basis is "You can't have your cake and eat it, too." What's the point of having cake, one might inquire, if one cannot eat it? Of course, the cliche simply means that once you have, in fact, eaten your cake, you no longer have it; you cannot both ingest the cake and possess it; you cannot have things both ways; you must choose.

(Digression: the meaning would be much clearer if one reversed the terms: "You cannot eat your cake and have it, too." Start spreading the word, Sloppists. EOD)

All of which is by way of introducing today's topic: the powerful human impulse to clasp one's cake in a death grip while at the same time enjoying all that cake-y goodness.

At work we see this all the time. Today we heard about a student who required a creme-filled donut. (NOTE: We are changing various details to preserve both student confidentiality and allegorical rhetoric.) The school's Pastry Department was only too willing to provide said donut--it's what they do. But the student, perhaps fearing the stigma of identifying herself as a pastry needer, did not wish to utilize the department's services. Instead, she went to her instructor and demanded that the instructor himself provide her a donut. As this instructor's department chair, the Solipsist was consulted. His response: If the student is unwilling to do what she needs to do to acquire the services to which she is entitled, then we are under no obligation to go out of our way to meet those needs. Our dean was concerned that the situation might become litigious!

Such is our society today, though. How can we blame this student when all around she sees supposed grown-ups behaving in much the same way? AIG wants a government bail-out but balks when anyone in government proposes reasonable restrictions on the use of those funds. The federal government must stay the hell out of education--unless it's considering legislation to permit prayer in schools. The federal government must also keep the hell out of people's private lives--except when it comes to preventing women from having abortions or gay people from getting married.

Look, there's really nothing wrong with WANTING to eat one's cake and have it, too. As human beings, we're hard-wired with those desires. The mark of maturity, though, is the recognition that it's largely impossible.