How Taste Becomes Part of Who We Are
People who’ve drunk black coffee for decades sometimes can’t remember whether they ever liked it with cream and sugar. At some point in early adulthood, you may decide to accept a tougher, less indulgent version of yourself. Black coffee becomes an emblem of that choice, a small signal that you’ve moved toward an identity that skips perceived softness.
Waking at 5:47 AM to a “perfectly quiet” kitchen, the narrator faces a cup of black coffee, a scene that has repeated for “twenty-something years.” His wife, by contrast, adds cream and sugar. The routine leads him to wonder when he became a “coffee purist.” The shift is unclear: maybe it began during his early years as a claims adjuster (insurance claims adjuster), maybe when money was tight and cream felt like an avoidable luxury, or maybe it was part of a gradual hardening that discouraged small comforts.
Where Toughness Comes From (And How It Shows Up)
Adult life carries a myth that you should get tougher, that gentleness equals weakness. It appears in small rituals: drinking coffee black, ordering steak rare, pretending to enjoy running in the rain. This narrative often emerges “somewhere between college and our first real job.”
The narrator’s father fits the model, working double shifts at the factory for thirty years, drinking coffee black, and eating “whatever was put in front of him without complaint.” That stoic resilience shaped the narrator’s idea of strength. When the father was laid off at 45, the narrator sat in a company parking lot for an hour and realized how much he longed for softness and comfort. That moment showed how pursuing toughness can leave you unprepared for vulnerability.
When Liking Something Turns Into Putting on a Show
Habits can become performances maintained for reasons that aren’t entirely genuine, often rooted in a performance-based upbringing. You might like jazz because “someone you admired mentioned it” and only question that preference fifteen years later. Maybe your neighbor stuck with CrossFit for five years despite hating it, or the regular at the coffee shop always orders eggs over easy while grimacing with every bite.
Last week the narrator added cream to his coffee and found it surprisingly pleasant, prompting a reflection on other performed positivity in his life.
Choosing What You Actually Like
Here, strength is less about enduring discomfort than being honest about what you want. The narrator demonstrates this by changing his morning routine: some days black, some days with cream. “The world hasn’t ended.” The point is permission to be human, to let go of inherited roles and cultural stories and focus on reclaiming one’s authentic self.
Are your choices really yours, or leftovers from a persona you built years ago? It’s a reminder that life’s short enough to enjoy your coffee—and your life—in ways that feel true to you.
