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December 4, 2014

Proceedings of the Natural Institute of Science | Volume 1 | Editorial 4

Argument for compatibility in the discourse of cake possession versus cake consumption

Dr. Forrest Blackwood¹
1 - Chairman Emeritus and Sir Lloyd Gordon Fellow at the Steeplechase Institute of St. Mary's College

submitted: October 11, 2014
accepted: October 27, 2014

{For the purposes of this paper the Author uses “Cake” in its abstract as an edible, flat standing, cylindrical [min. 3 - 4 servings not to exceed 6 servings], sweet, baked confection, covered in delicious frosting/icing topping. [Add’l decorative flourishes optional (ie; sprinkles, candles, etc.)].}

Cake is a pleasure-vehicle which enters your mouth orifice and generates happiness and contentment. A baker bakes a cake for you to eat. You eat the cake one serving at a time. This is a fairly common cake experience. Usually, others are with you and also eat the cake so it is rare you eat the whole cake, otherwise you would eat the whole cake. Thusly, cake is a socially associated pleasure device and can even lead people to become bakers themselves, if only temporarily, in order to privately make cake to eat and or to make cake to eat with guests, usually as just another excuse to eat cake. [see popular song “If I Knew You Were Comin, I’d’ve Baked a Cake” (Hoffman, Al, Merrill, Bob, and Watts, Clem. Mercury Records, 1950). Optional Sesame Street version available here.]

Cake, like all things directly associated with pleasure (i.e., sex, going out with friends, spending money), causes a considerable amount of guilt when consumed. The guilt is proportional to the number of pieces of cake you eat multiplied by how many pieces you promised yourself you’d eat and inversely proportional to how long it’s been since you ate all that cake, squared (Equation 1) (in practice, the equation must include one’s own particular “self-loathing constant” which differs in each person but is assumed to be rather high in individuals who frequently eat cake for pleasure.):

where :( is the self-loathing constant and t_cake-1 is the time since last cake consumption.

Guilt from pleasure-vehicles manifests in different ways. Sometimes guilt divides into numerous, pathogenic conditions. For instance, spending too much money out with your friends causes you to sleep in the next day to avoid thinking about rent (first symptom), followed by not eating all day (second symptom), and then, finally, drinking at home by yourself at night (third symptom). All these are derived from one act of harmless, carefree pleasure. Cake-guilt sometimes manifests as the feeling that simultaneously consuming cake while also having cake is wrong. However, I argue that one should not feel guilty for eating and enjoying cake when, at the same time, one is the owner of additional cake intended to be consumed later on the couch, watching TV. While legitimate forms of cake-eating guilt occur, this particular strain should no longer be considered valid.

Generally, it is understood that at every moment nearby, a cake exists that can be obtained and eaten. This is a source of considerable public anxiety. Besides making us fat (which increases our self-loathing constant), it is not nutritionally viable to eat cake for every meal (even in slightly different forms such as waffles, poptarts, crepes, increasingly annoying cake pops, etc.) Our biology makes eating cake all the time completely unhealthy. Consequently, we rationalize certain times when it is acceptable to eat cake and when it’s not.

The idea of eating cake, so potent, creates a dichotomy in our minds such that we can either be “having cake” and or “not having cake”. Note that the act of eating cake is completely left out. Found in the space between having it and not having it, EATING cake is relegated to the mindless carnality of blind, rage-like, primitive consumption. Once the eating of cake is complete and these blinders removed, energy used for the act is used to address the question of whether to “have more” or “not have anymore”. Both sides are advocated, respectively, by the natural lust for cake versus the gnawing, self-chastisement of hatred and sadness of self. However, eating cake doesn’t mean you can’t still have it.

While you can’t eat cake all the time, you still may have cake. Actually, having cake you haven’t had yet is normal. You can’t eat cake you haven’t already had (it’s impossible!). Since no one has cake they’re not going to eat, the cake you “have” is always the cake you are soon to “have had” and therefore having cake isn’t wrong (that person is lucky!) If you’re eating cake, that isn’t wrong either, and since cake you “had” (and no longer have) is just cake you’ve eaten, if you’re eating cake and still have cake it just means you had two pieces of cake when you started, which is also not wrong.

If I had a horse I could ride it every day! Long rides in the meadows and pastures! There’s nothing wrong with that. Likewise, if I had a piece of cake I could eat everyday, life would be grand! Unlike a horse, a piece of cake is gone after you eat it (eating horsemeat is uncommon because they have so much personality!). One piece of cake cannot be eaten more than once but a horse can be ridden everyday! If a horse died after it had only been ridden once would it be wrong to have another horse in the stable waiting to be ridden later? No, one can have a horse and ride it too.

Having an extra piece of cake in the fridge while eating a piece of cake is not wrong. It’s smart practice. It saves time running out to get more cake and eliminates the horrible panicked feeling of knowing you’re out of cake. While a bird in the hand is still better than two in the bush (unless the two birds are sleeping quietly and would be easy to grab) it is absolutely warrantless to feel guilt in having cake while eating cake.