A Tall Tale of Two Siblings, and The Orange Cake

Once upon a time, in a distant idyllic land, two bakers, there were two siblings, John and Catherine, that each had their own bakeries. Both had, and used, the same ingredients to make their cakes. They both just adored orange cakes.

John is very organized and systematic. He follows their great-grandma’s secret recipe book verbatim. And applies everything as is prescribed by the siblings’ great-grandma.

Catherine, on the other hand, prefers to improvise and go crazy. She’s haphazard and has a knack for disorientation and disorderly, all-over-the-shop baking.

None of them seemed to be wrong here, each had their own respective styles of baking. So during normal times, customers may prefer John’s orange cakes due to their more palatable and appealing nature, and balanced taste. But Catherine could also have customers who danced to the beat of their own drum, and who were short on cash.

Now the dangerous thing here was, that because Catherine was so sloppy and slapdash in her style, most of the time she wouldn’t use any tray or any kind of casserole dish to hold the cake ingredients together. Predominantly, she just would dump her orange cake mix into the oven like it was garbage and hoped for the best, and then would perversely and smugly proclaim “I’m doing hard work here. I am a bakerix hero!”

John would just laugh off her regular, undue declarations.

Since John was more strategic and systematic, he always appreciated the value of, and beauty in, balance, harmony, unity and cordially believed in synergy, even outside of the bakery, with his friends, or in the city hall, theatres or even when just chillin’ out in the park.

Furthermore, John, being so systematic and rather meticulous, always used a tray or casserole for when he baked his orange cakes.

He just incorrigibly loathed and scoffed at the idea of simply and naively improvising and just hoping for the best. He would regularly remind Catherine that “You can’t be successful or sensibly reach any of your goals unless you’re willing to put in, not just the effort, but savvy what type of effort is required and to where it shall be directed.”

He believed that efforts should be channeled where they are needed the most, and that one should be strategic about what they do. And that true success comes when one decides and knows how to work smart, not work more. Catherine invariably discorded and belittled this thinking.

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One day, the mayor of their city overhears about their amiable, but very much existent, discord. So he decides to subsequently sally forth to their adjoined bakeries and see things for himself and ultimately settle this matter once and for all: Organized bakery vs haphazard improvised one, which is a better and more auspicious option?

The mayor happened to be a former gourmet and cook himself. Most of the time, his wife didn’t cook, he just would come back from his office and would cook for his family himself, after all, he was a highly skilled and adroit cook, with a flair, finesse and taste for delectable and scrumptiously mouth-watering food, both sweet and savory.

He thus first visited Catherine’s “Hallelujah” bakery. Everything was a chaotic, jumbled mess from the moment the door opened; flour on the floor, smelly oranges scattered on the sides, and then “Gosh, what is this? Littered or lettered ceramics on the floor?”, he quipped to himself silently.

He nonetheless was able to restrain himself from commenting out loud as to not dampen the mood or sap Catherine’s zeal, whilst he concurrently said that it was “understandable” that Catherine had forgotten setting her alarm clock and had to now go and prepare the cake from scratch. (That must’ve been embarrassing for Catherine)

After Catherine had hurriedly made the cake, and it was time to taste it himself, the mayor forced a morsel of Catherine’s unappealing, made-with-undue-haste and slipshod orange cake into his discerning mouth, and .. got chills down his poor spine ..

As not to be insolent or put her down, he just thanked her for her ‘honest and appreciable work’ and that he now had to go and taste her brother’s cake and judge both for himself and settle this dispute once and for all.

He subsequently thence entered John’s “Sweet Home Sweet” bakery. He was instantly greeted by a neatly-dressed, pristinely decent, immaculately polished, and mesmerizingly winsome John who was expecting him, and had already prepared the cake in advance.

John sallied forth and strode right into his tidy and impossibly neat kitchen and brought out on a beautifully ornate cart, his conscientiously crafted cake, that of course he had made in a casserole dish (unlike his beloved but temerarious, and shambolic sister, Catherine.) The mayor was impressed by the appealing look and design of the cake, how the colors were harmonized, how the stripes and squiggles of cream and decorative sugar seemed to complement each other, as if they were almost ‘dancing’ in unison; in harmony and unity with each other. “A paragon of illustrious synergy”, the mayor extolled it.

The mayor then partook a bite, using John’s specific dessert fork, from the cake and, “my goodness, good heavenly gracious”, he exclaimed, “this is one of the best orange cakes I have ever had. It reminds me of my grandpa’s orange cake. Thank you, John. Thank you very much!” he euphorically preconised as he sang the mellifluous praises of John’ ravishing and lusciously moreish cake. He then went on to tuck into, and gleefully ingurgitate, the whole cake. And he was manducating the last morsel of this saccharine cake, he asseverated “I have never relished partaking a cake in this manner since my grandpa’s cake days when I was a seven-year-old kid.” He ecstatically proclaimed, as that last bite of John’s assiduously formulated and assembled cake travelled down his esophagus and into his, now replete, stomach.

The mayor then effusively thanked John for his bona-fide and admirable ingenuity, solicitous attention to detail, systematic and strategic approach to baking, his earnest studiousness, keen taste and eminent aptitude, and of course, for being so much so that he had brought back the mayor into a fond past; a past where his grandpa, made orange cakes.

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The moral of this story is that, even though Catherine was an amazing and generous person with a heart of a true altruist, she lacked the savvy know-how into how to be organized, she was a ‘satisfactory’ baker to some, but true success doesn’t travel with middling performance, and middling performance can never be found holding hands with due diligence.

See, if Catherine had been more organized and neat, and had used a casserole dish for her cake instead of simply calling it a day and in a makeshift manner, shove all the ingredients and the cake mixture into the oven, she might’ve had a chance at being the one to offer the gourmandizing mayor a pleasant and satisfying, if not stellar and memorable, sweet dining experience.

The lesson for us all here in the world-changing movement, is that as superheroes hellbent on saving this one Earth we have, this pale blue dot, we have to recognize that if we continue on this disorganized, slapdash, haphazard path of improvisations and “smashing all the buttons and see which one works.”, we’ll continue to be a fractured, fragmented and disunited movement, incoherent, incohesive and devoid of any synergy, and, all that this synergy might have to offer.

Of course we need all the solutions, every one of us has their own element, their own superpower, and everyone is right in their own skin and their own superhero costume. But it is becoming increasingly important and critical for us to recognize that, just like that orange cake from the story of John and Catherine, we need a tray, a casserole dish to hold our joint efforts together; to  foster and allow for collaboration and liaison on a scale and at a deep level never seen before, and ultimately, create and generate this synergy that has eluded us for decades hitherto.

Let us all here, recognize that just like “Vision without execution is delusion”, action without a proper plan and discipline, is just entertaining our time while running in place, it may make us ‘feel’ good that we’re doing ‘somethin’; much like a rocking chair, a running mill, worrying too much, or overthinking, it gives us something to do, but doesn't get us anywhere; it may empower us inasmuch as we’re not sitting with our hands behind our backs watching as our future and civilization are being snatched from beneath our feet; but ultimately, they don’t truly get us closer to our end goal at the pace and speed that is required. It’s the lace and the time window we have; they’re just irreconcilable with the efficacy and potency of our current haphazard, mostly-it’s-civil-disobedience approach to change-making.

The climate and ecological crisis is a puzzle; not only do we need all pieces, but we need to put this pieces into their rightful place on the puzzle plate if we are to finally complete the puzzle and witness the glory of the final image.

Denzel Washington epitomized this when he said:

“Just because you’re doing a lot more doesn’t mean you’re getting a lot more done. Don’t confuse movement with progress. Because you can run in place all day and never get anywhere.”

And I don’t think I could’ve said it any better.

What we conceive we can achieve, and what we make, makes us. We can choose to dump all our efforts and “ingredients” into our veritable oven, but shouldn’t r have the right to complain or to even be surprised when we fail. Or do we want our mayor (i.e. future generations) to judge us as “incompetent bakers”?

The power of choice lies within each one of us. We have a choice to make in this pivotal moment in history: synergistically unify into a formidable progressive force, or risk failing all future generations.

And I trust in all of us, to put our own children and grandchildren in front of our eyes as we make this difficult decision, and I believe in our collective ability to make the right one.

This has been Yusuf Kemal.. and I invite you, to Re-consider.