Ice-Cream Metaphor
It’s time for an over-wrought metaphor.
Here’s my situation. Like most people, I like ice-cream. It used to be that all I ate was chocolate. Every time I wanted ice-cream, I would eat chocolate. And I liked it. In fact, I thought chocolate was all there was. Neither I, nor anyone else I knew, ate anything called “vanilla” or “strawberry.” To me, “flavors” were things like “chocolate swirl,” or chocolate with nuts. And those seemed pretty different from regular ice-cream (i.e. chocolate ice-cream).
I have since learned, however, that I was grossly misinformed. Chocolate is not the only flavor. Not only is there vanilla and strawberry, but an infinitude of other flavors, all very different tasting and a lot of them very good.
Now I’m sick of chocolate. There’s nothing wrong with chocolate per se, but I have no more desire to eat it. First, I’ve had plenty of it. I’ve “done the chocolate thing.” Second, I can only eat so much ice-cream, and there are lots of flavors yet to try. Third, I’ve discovered that the chocolate I was eating was actually fairly mediocre chocolate. It wasn’t bad, but so-so. It turns out that the company that makes it started in the 50’s, and hasn’t changed the recipe since. So it’s kind of dated now, harkening back to a different esthetic, and showing signs of an unperfected manufacturing process. I hear that they’ve put a new label on the box, and added some fruit or something, but it’s basically the same chocolate.
A lot of people still just eat chocolate. Chocolate does have its benefits. It’s their favorite, it’s very widely available, and all their friends eat it. Of course, it’s also often the only flavor they’ve ever known, and to them “flavor” still means something like “chocolate swirl.” And here I am, eating kiwi sherbert, and I say, “Hey! Want to try some of this? It’s really good.” And they say, “No thanks. We like this chocolate. That stuff you have is weird.”
This is understandable, but also frustrating for me, because I want to share these other cool flavors. Some people even get angry when I suggest trying another flavor, and tell me that I’m not really eating ice-cream at all. They seem to see other flavors as some kind of threat; that the very existence of vanilla must mean that chocolate is somehow inferior…which it isn’t, but it also isn’t the whole story.
I’m no burning zealot, forcibly trying to make other people eat my ice-cream. If they want to eat chocolate, that’s okay. But there is a problem—and I’m afraid my metaphor has to stretch a bit here. You can hang out and eat ice-cream with other people, but you have to eat the same flavor. That’s just how it is. So I can’t sit with people eating chocolate while I eat my coconut. It won’t work. And unfortunately, I know some cool people, who I’d like to hang out with, but they only eat chocolate. We could try to mix two flavors together, but it would probably be horrible, and no one would like it. Occasionally, I’ll find some kind of chocolate that seems kind of interesting, like chocolate-raspberry-pecan, and these other people can eat that too. But it’s a little wild for them, and a little tame for me. So, in the end, we have two choices. Either none of us is exactly happy, or we don’t eat ice-cream together.
I try to be enthusiastic about non-chocolate ice-cream, and pitch whatever flavors I can, but it seldom works. It also doesn’t help that chocolate comes in a spiffy carton while “wild mango cumquat” comes in a brown paper bag. If chocolate is familiar and basically good, which it is, I can’t really complain against it. But it would be nice if everyone could come hang out and eat some strawberry with me.