Part One here.
What does "have your cake and eat it too" even mean? Aren't the two synonymous? When I tell you “I want to have cake”, what do you think I desire more: to acquire a cake, or to eat one?
Let’s assume, in the above quote, that “have” means “possess”, to distinguish it from “eat”. Then what is the purpose of possessing a cake if not to eat it? Isn’t a cake’s very existence defined by its capacity to be eaten? Why would I ever want to merely possess a cake? Furthermore, wouldn’t it be preferable to eat a cake and NOT possess it? When I come into possession of a cake, it’s always through some kind of investment: temporal, financial, emotional, or otherwise. Why would I want to undergo this sort of investment if I don’t have to? Does the quote suggest this sort of investment is necessary to obtain satisfaction from a cake? I want to not have a cake and eat it, too. Is that so wrong?
Perhaps we lament the impossibility of simultaneous cake-possession and -consumption because cakes have appealing qualities outside of their taste. Is there something especially enticing about a cake’s frosted aesthetic, its nuptial connotations, its decadent symbolism? If so, perhaps when we bemoan the fact that we can’t “have our cake and eat it too”, we are bemoaning something endemic to eating itself. Consumption, by its nature, is zero-sum; when we eat a cake, we gain satisfaction, but we must destroy the cake we possess in exchange for that satisfaction. Consumption is about loss as much as it is about gain.
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