Monday

This Update's title is Having My Cake and Eating It Too. It reverses a popular aphorism, a cliché and torturous way of saying one must choose between conserving and spending one's resources. "I can't have my cake and eat it too." That seems like stricture: stay away from cake; or hedonism: eat other people's cake; or causal fallacy: any cake you cannot eat is yours; or something even more soporific: does one really command their own cake? But that's the problem with aphorisms. They've been cut to a catchy tune, thwarting any focused meaning. "Beauty is only skin deep" means what? Dwelling on vanities is shallow? Someone who isn't pretty can never be beautiful? Looked at the right way, "a friend in need is a friend indeed" can be followed to nearly opposite conclusions. What the hell does this have to do with anything? The problem with my title is that its analogy is broken. One cake cannot stand in for the accrual of resources any more than someone can adopt a policy of absolute retention. Realistically, we must forever keep eating our cake to survive; therefore, we must keep accruing it. The skill with which we negotiate this relationship between having and eating dictates our sustained viability. Now you are wondering if this Update is political. Not at all. My goals, viewed through the lens of this column, are to accrue experiences and to write them down. Both are important to me. The problem is, successes on any one side of this equation are ultimately pyrrhic. It's what the cake rule would teach if it wasn't inept: one resource must be tempered to cover competing expenditures, so success can be marked by prolonging the relationship. Whew. I've decided I'm not going to blog on the weekends anymore. [Cavin]