Inventing the Sound Chef, no. 1

Archetypal Engineering @ Earcake Kitchen

Let’s be honest: I don’t precisely know who I am. Who is Sound Chef Shehrose? Would I be Shehrose not as Sound Chef? Without the name of Shehrose? In formal logic, this class of problems can be considered the class of existential modal counterfactuals about personal identity: Would a certain personal identity still exist if not apparent self-element(s) X? Moreover, at which point does a personal identity become archetypally bound, that is to say accessible by general properties to at least some others?

This line of questioning opens up more questions: if an archetype is necessary and non-unique, how ought it be preserved? Can archetypes be faithfully replicated? Does such archetypal engineering lead to wisdom in a Feynmanian sense, self-knowledge by self-constructibility? What relationship might there be to theoretical planning and practical building for archetypes? And, finally, what could this all mean for the apparent archetype of Sound Chef, its importance, and its longevity?

Take Sound Chef as what it’s intended to be, a musical metaphor for the role of the chef, the artisan of food for consumer enjoyment. Earcake Sounds is a business, just like a restaurant; its goal is to please the consumer—but not by basic instincts, for such a consumer would become addicted, likely financially destitute and menacing to my other customers. By self-interest, truly, basic instinct is not a desire worth pleasing outside of the fundamental necessities. A good chef understands this rational dilemma—between short-term and long-term profits—of the implications of his own business instincts. (And one might wonder whether the informational quality of currency today contributes to such a rational conclusion. But that is for another time.)

Still, one could count money all day beyond any further care and still be lacking something. This the good chef understands as well: health promotes profit, but profit does not promote health by itself. The cycle must be complete by re-routing the profit back into health, of oneself and one’s patrons: “Sir, please, we don’t have sugary cheesecakes here; please find how refreshing my dark chocolate raspberry carrot cake is, all under 200 calories with no preservatives, no processed foods, all below one serving of each macronutrient.”

The good chef, in other words, must be a human being to persist at all — and a good one at that. A savior by way of taste, through taste, but not because of taste. In spite of taste, rather, the palatable soul curries favor with his patrons by the circumstances of individual passion, interest, availability, and so on and so forth. So I argue: the Sound Chef must promote such a cycle of health and profit back into health on the condition of one’s humanity (or life force, if you prefer).

But what’s served is not gustatory taste here but aural taste. A metaphor that is novelly fictional but rife with meaningful relations, intellectual prana, ever-available nourishment by any sense. And so the Sound Chef must seek true relations between this aforementioned trait of good chefdom and the metaphorically essential qualities of sound. Curation of sonic ingredients for the long-term, bonafide patron; assembly of said ingredients; presentation and “bedside service” to relax the lovely consumer into a new way of being that best aims to produce health; and finally an education given to others to supplant the originator of the Sound Chef. Perhaps giving an education would put me out of business early, perhaps I am already lost. But what cost is too great for a chance to improve social well-being when one is part of such a society? Indeed, by language and mind alone, we belong.

Yours,

Shehrose, Sound Chef @ Earcake Sounds

Next: The Precise Planning and Construction of the Sound Chef