The cheesecake chronicles continue!
If you happened to read last week’s post, titled ‘Giving up on cheesecake’ then you may remember Johnny, our protagonist from a hypothetical scenario. You may have noticed that Johnny never actually gave up eating cheesecake. And so even though last week’s post concluded with ‘The End’, it turns out that it wasn’t really the end at all.
This is how the rest of the story played out.
‘Cattle Gate’ Cape Grim. 2018, Olympus Em-1, 12-40mm.
“After boycotting the milk from large dairy farms, and consuming milk from the farm of an older couple who milked their cows by hand, Johnny led a very happy life for some time. He felt that his cheesecakes tasted better for he believed that his dependence on milk did not result in the suffering of cows.
Then one day he happened to be walking home, carrying a bottle of milk in his hand. Coming the opposite way on the road toward him was a cow. As they neared each other, the cow spoke to Johnny.
-’Human, why do you keep stealing our milk from us?’
Johnny came to a halt, astounded. He did not understand how a cow could talk to him. He was speechless.
-‘Stop looking dumbfounded, human’. The cow continued. ‘We know what happens to our milk. You make cheesecake with it’.
Johnny couldn’t deny it, for indeed he was planning to use the milk he was carrying to make cheesecake.
-’Human, we would prefer to keep our milk for our young. Whether we are milked by hand or by machines, we are separated from our young forcefully. This causes us suffering. Representing all cows, I ask you to stop eating cheesecake.’
Johnny was too shocked to say any words. So he passed the cow on the road and walked home.
From that day forward, Johnny never ate cheesecake made from the milk of cows again. And no cows ever spoke to Johnny again.”
‘Hungry Calves’, Cape Grim. 2018, Olympus Em-1, 12-40mm.
The story allows for some questions to remain… Did Johnny actually give up on cheesecake or did he simply turn to making cheesecake from goat’s milk instead? Perhaps Johnny was less compassionate toward goats than cows, after an incident in his youth in which a billy goat charged him and this event has implanted Johnny with a natural distrust for goats. The story doesn’t actually tell us whether Johnny really gave up eating cheesecake.
Enquisitive goat, Cape Grim. 2018, Olympus Em-1.
It is easy to trick ourselves into thinking we have given something up when we actually haven’t. As humans, we have an incredibly complex system of justifications that back up our actions. It is much easier to alter our habits than it is to completely change them. Ask someone to give something up and they are likely to replace their destructive habit with a slightly less destructive one, rather than stopping that habit completely.
My point is, decisions in life are rarely black or white. Decisions are an ongoing process.
But our decisions do betray one thing: they show what it is that we care about most.
And for what we care about most, we need to be willing to give anything up.
To cheesecake or not to cheesecake, that is the question! 2020, Pentax MX, 50mm, Portra 400.