The Cake.
We are, for all intents and purposes, born a blank slate. Only two factors really matter at birth: the genes of our parents and the socioeconomic station that we are born into. Everything else that we become comes out of those circumstances: Who our siblings are, where we go to school, who are parents are, or at least, those that raise us, all of these individuals end up bringing a great weight with their influence. Almost immediately, as children, we begin to question our surroundings, our reality, our existence and purpose. We discover there’s a hole within us that desires filling. With knowledge. With the idea of existence. It requires a “cake” of sorts: Of beliefs, camaraderie, and purpose.
As youths we fill up this existential hole with the “cake” that our parents present us: religion, politics, fandoms. Who becomes our friends and peers has some influence on the “cake” that our family presents to us. But that is controlled by both how our parents present that “cake” to us and the circumstances of location in which we inhabit. But regardless we eat it up and it’s satisfying. And for many this is it. This is all we need. This is where tradition comes from. The sharing of the “cake” of belief and ritual that our ancestors created and passed down. When we have children we will do the same. Things will change through generations, but typically not enough to change the nature of the “cake” from parent to child.
For others the “cake” of our parents and peers isn’t filling. It leaves too many questions unanswered or we find the answers unsatisfying. For others the “cake” is a poison. It goes against our fundamental natures, and challenges who we really are as people. This may lead to new beliefs systems, fandoms, political outlooks to be adopted and embraced. However these new ideas may lead to strife. This new cake may be ridiculed or even cause ostracization or worse from those that we grew up with.
Even so, there’s a certain longing for the original family and peers of our youth. To the point that many of us have the uncanny ability to accept incredible differences of outlooks despite potential conflict. These conflicts are easy to ignore when it’s something ultimately trivial like a fandom. Much more difficult when their outlook challenges how we fundamentally see the world or ourselves. There’s a certain breaking point; A point when you recognize another person’s “cake”, the philosophy they’ve used to fill up that hole inside them, is toxic to you and it’s made them toxic to you as well. These relationships become untenable.
When this happens we have to cut them off, to excise them out of our lives. This can be painful, even more painful, than having the existential hole within us unfilled. Perhaps because their absence, despite their toxicity, only serves to make the hole bigger.
So the “cake” of meaning that we consume and pass on continues to fill us as we make our way through life. It changes but we do not notice it. It changes us, whether it’s the fluff of fandom, or the heaviness of politics and religion. We seek out others who share in that same “cake” and extend our social circles, and those social circles of our children to include those individuals. And the process starts anew as we feed it to our children, who as the age seek to fill that same hole they’ve found within them.
And so it goes. The cycle continues sometimes with willing acceptance. Sometimes with abject rejection. Sometimes with violence. One person’s cake is another’s poison, and we get angry at each other for being poisoned by the “cake” we sought to share. The cake we’ve consumed is simply not filling enough. We hope by sharing it that it will help. That urge to force feed each other grows and we all must eat the same “cake” in order to fill in that hole. But the hole goes unfilled. Despite all we consume and the promise of the “cake”. Despite the need and will to share it by kindness or by force.
One thing we almost always fail to realize: The “cake” is a lie.
