2x spicy ramen—An exploration of personal agency and trust

I’ll never understand how a ninety-nine cent pack of low-quality noodles became a gourmet experience in America. That’s the power of marketing, I guess.

Recently my wife and kids wanted to try this local ramen place. I was too lazy to make dinner (totally on brand for me), so I responded to their request the only way I knew how:

Bet.

So we went to the ramen place, because that’s where you go to get the thing when the thing is ramen, and we browsed through the Great Wall of Ramen. I settled on some spicy beef option. I can’t remember what my wife and daughter chose, but my son felt the 2x spicy ramen was calling his name.

Yet again, this wasn’t a choice I’d have made, but I responded the only way I knew how:

lfg.

So we put our bowls of ramen on the appropriate machines, which then doled out the appropriate amount of water and turned the heat to the appropriate level to boil.

My ramen was pretty straight-forward: Empty the flavor packet and the flakes, and stir while it cooks. (Maybe I wasn’t too lazy to cook after all—I just needed to be motivated with the gimmick of an experience like no other. Man, marketers really do run the world!)

My son’s ramen was slightly more complicated in that it required one more crucial step: Adding the sauce packet when there were around two minutes left to cook. Once the sauce packet is inserted, we’ve reached the point of no return, because the sauce packet is where the spice lies. If you want the spice, then you need the sauce. (That last line can get you in trouble if someone misses the context.)

My wife pleaded I have mercy on my son. ‘Spare the poor child!’ she called out. ‘He knows not what he do!’ She then suggested I put in only half the packet. But then it wouldn’t be 2x spicy ramen, would it? If that’s the case, he should have just chosen 1x spicy. If you’re gonna go, go all the way.

The idea of reducing the ramen to average spicy reminded me of a bit of wisdom I once heard from a college professor:

Education is the one thing people don’t want to get their money’s worth on.

They want to know only what’s on the test. They don’t want to learn anything extra to get the full value.

That professor was onto something. This was a learning moment, and my son deserved to get his money’s worth. How wrong I would be to rob him of this moment. If I protect him now, I’ve taught him nothing about personal agency and his power to influence consequences within his own life. I risk having him always look to someone else to protect him and guide him to safety.

I wasn’t having none of that, so I poured in the whole sauce packet, 100% of that 2x spicy goodness. Where else can I expect to find such cheap entertainment on a Sunday evening, especially when football’s out of season?

My son barely survived the first bite. The inside of his mouth burned with the fire of a thousand suns. He saw a light and he heard a tribal drumbeat and some unfamiliar chanting. He tapped out after the third bite. Fortunately, his sister didn’t eat all of her ramen, so he didn’t go hungry.

You may have already predicted, dear reader, that most of the other parties in this story have labeled me the villain. But they’ve misunderstood the conflict, in which I was a mere guide. The conflict at the root of the story was not man-vs-man, nor was it man-vs-nature or man-vs-noodle. No, the conflict was man-vs-himself. And this type of conflict is the most challenging we fight every day. If we can master that conflict, then the rest is easy in comparison.

And if you think I am in fact the villain in this story, then ask yourself if you’d feel the same if I were Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Feel the same you’d probably not. Mmmm

Goodbye. Adios. Adieu.