Thanksgiving: "A Lot On My Plate"

The phrase "a lot on my plate" is used almost interchangeably with "a lot on my mind". Does this suggest that the mind is a separable platter that the conscious feeds from? What are the subtle differences between these two that may offer insight into how we think? To answer these questions, we first need to examine the meaning of the metaphor "plate" in this context.

At times we may find ourselves burdened by the course of life's events. We recognise that no single event is unbearable, but that the sum of the events is far more than we are able to take in. We overload.

What is quite interesting is how we phrase this undesirable state as "a lot on my plate": the metaphor "plate" serving up the suggestion that our life is a meal. Our experience with life becomes an experience with food. Since our earliest life experiences were quite centred on feeding, it is only natural that metaphors associating our experiences with feeding would work on an intuitive level with us.

In our menu of entertainment choices, we may "take in a show" that is dubbed a "smorgasbord of stunning visuals" or a "feast for your eyes". A scene within may be "of poor taste" or the "icing on the cake". This is as true in real life experiences as it is in virtual events.

A plate of food is an arrangement of flavours, be they bite size and mixed, such as in a salad or stew, or collected in piles, such as on a Thanksgiving plate, a dim sum, sushi or curry platter. A typical plate, then, is a selection of different foodstuffs within a singular territory. More so, a plate represents a snapshot of our diet.

The classic Thanksgiving plate consists of the essentials: turkey, stuffing, potatoes, corn, salad, cranberry sauce, a bun and of course - the gravy. So powerful is the drive to feast that we put "as much on our plate as possible", then consciously force ourselves to remember to "save room for dessert" in our feast. The drive to feast is so strong, so zealous that it could be equated to a  bloodlust. How often do we depict such human meals as "a feeding frenzy", finding easy similarity to the behaviour of hungry sharks.

The turkey is the kill, made fresh by being served warm and stuffed with new innards. Gravy is the blood of the human carnivore, salty, thick and warm - oozing life from the mashed potatoes that bathe in the warm animal fat of melted butter. This would simply be a kill, if not for the potatoes themselves, the corn and the cranberry sauce. But we are not carnivores, we are omnivores.

Which leads us to the supermarket.

Trapped in cans, bottles, bags, wrappers and boxes are the foods that will find their way to the plate. Packaging is as natural to humans as it is to all life, whether as the plastic-wrap skin of a grape or the not-quite-tin can of a pecan. The packages are arranged into types - sections - that if intuitive are easy to find and remember. Meats, fruit, vegetables, breads, dairy, personal hygiene and so on.

As natural as packing, so to is the arrangement of food in the wild. An ecosystem is a supermarket, allowing each member of its society to feed, and have its preference. The fields yield grains, such as the corn or, ultimately buns. Some soils support the growth of roots, such as potatoes, while other soils make way for fruit-bearing plants. Leafy greens prefer their own type of soil, and like the others, find themselves in groups. And with that roving centrepiece of flesh, the parts of the human feed-lot are complete.

A dinner plate is a single-serving feed lot. We graze from food to food, tiring of one, then wandering to the next. We have the comfort of knowing that if we turn our backs on the corn for one moment, the crows won't clean us out (though bigger brother/brat Billy just may). What we put on our plate, and what has landed there by other hands, has become ours.

As we assume new tasks or responsibilities, take up hobbies or lifestyles, we fill our plates, according to metaphor. The things of our life are our diet, and become a must whether eagerly feasted on, or  procrastinatingly  pushed around the plate. Even mere information finds its way to our plate, and may become a lot to digest, or too much to take in.

Somehow, this metaphor concludes that "doing" is "eating". That to "take a bite out of life" is to feed by living. What exactly is being fed?

The mind hungers for knowledge and experience. We feed our children's growing minds by teaching them. And we don't feed them a single staple subject. Instead, we wander around an educational dinnerplate feeding them 45 minute servings of the three staples "Readin', Ritin' and 'Rithmatic", ending eagerly and in overzealous self-servings with the dessert of recess. With the word "dessert" deriving from "clear the table", and "recess" from "go back", one can see a tone of resetting, as if an original point of reference is somehow desirable.

Salt, sour, bitter and sweet - the four classic taste senses. (Note: "Umami", the fifth sense, is a taste for decayed protein, such as found in aged steak or old cheese). Between turkey (salty) and cranberry sauce (sour, bitter and sweet), the four sensations are pretty much spent. Spuds and bread are pretty timid flavours on their own and we are urged not to "fill up on them". Dessert would appear to balance out the taste buds of a normal meal, but as you may notice, the few who have a remaining appetite are destined for pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie is not sweet. Instead, it fringes on sweetness and with the pie's spices, it nearly straddles the four tastes, smoothed into homogeny by the taste bud sealant whipped cream.

The Thanksgiving plate, like the ecosystem, supermarket or classroom, offers the necessities in balance. The plate of mind's eye seeks similar balance, but can only hold so much. The overloaded Thanksgiving dinner plate, the crowded ecosystem, the overstocked supermarket or the packed curriculum result in the same consequences - food falling off, half-eaten carcasses, products being discounted and students daydreaming or dropping out. Whether ignored or ousted, the excessive load will fall to the floor as being "too much to take".

Procrastination, neglect and fatigue - the very signs of having more on one's plate than they can handle - are seen on the faces of schoolchildren, office workers and tired ecosystems alike. They're all fed up, and they can't take any more - they've just had too many things on their plate.

The peas of the overloaded will be pushed around the plate of life.

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