In Ian Bogost’s article Egg McNothin‘ he explains that McDonalds fast food chain choosing to make their Egg McMuffins available all day long is truly a disservice. He feels that most of the beauty of the Egg McMuffin was that it was only available for breakfast. If you missed the cutoff, that’s it, none for you. In this article I think Bogost brings to light three very important ideas.

He starts off by saying “The greatest luxury is the one we cannot have—or at least, the one we cannot have very often.” This idea that part of enjoying something is the desire beforehand is actually very relatable. When someone works hard for something that thing becomes much more satisfying once it is attained as apposed to something that is handed to you hassle-free. This is a natural sensation that I think everyone experiences throughout life. Not that the Egg McMuffin is something that people work very hard to get, but knowing it is only served at certain times and buying one at that time is a system that is satisfying and reliable. When something is available all the time it can make it seem less special. He says, “When anytime is breakfast time, why even bother wanting breakfast.” If you can have breakfast at lunchtime or dinner time is it even still considered breakfast? He continues, “America is giving up McDonalds breakfast as an indulgence meant mostly to be missed rather than savored.”

Second, an important idea I think Bogost touches upon is the idea that in life things are not always available whenever you want them. The Egg McMuffin only being served on the breakfast menu and not later is a perfect example of how the world works! In the real world, you can not just expect things to be available 24/7.

“But far from initiating nihilistic despair, this moment invokes an invitation to rise above it. No hash browns, but perhaps fries. No McMuffin, but a cheeseburger is good enough. It’s good enough! The world restores its gentle sufficiency. The man who just-misses McDonald’s breakfast is a commoner’s Samuel Beckett, trudging ever forward despite the intrinsic absurdity of a 10:30a.m. breakfast cutoff. I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”

What this quote is saying is a good life lesson. Essentially Bogost is saying that in life, sometimes you miss out and missing out leads to growth. Not that missing out on an Egg McMuffin will necessarily help you face hardships in the future, but this concept of “I can’t go on, I’ll go on” is a valuable one.

Lastly, I think this article reminds us to appreciate the little things in life. Though the Egg McMuffin is barely a luxury, it represents the smaller things we brush over in course of our busy lives. Getting a breakfast sandwich that is only served for breakfast, for example, is a luxury. We need to slow down and take-in some of these smaller luxuries. Making the Egg McMuffin available all day takes away the appreciation of it. No one is especially happy they get to McDonalds right on time to get the Egg McMuffin if they can get it at any time of day. When something is limited, it forces us to appreciate it.

Therefore, McDonalds making the Egg McMuffin available all day is a seemingly minuscule piece of news in the midst of our chaotic world- but it is not “McNothin'” it’s actually a whole lot of “McSomethin'” that people should stop and think about.

When reading Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Lying In a Non-Moral Sense”, we are asked to figure out what his concept of truth is. It is much more complex than simply stating that telling the truth is good and lying is not. Rather, he goes on to discuss the roots of truth and where it originates from. Language and the play of words are both crucial factors in this theory in order to understand what truth is to Nietzsche.

Nietzsche writes, “Truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions, metaphors which have become worn by frequent use and have lost all sensuous vigor…” (p.768), and from this we can see that Nietzsche is very critical about the essence of truth, that it is a not real thing. He argues that truth is simply a metaphor that is used so frequently until we forget where it came from, and as a result we declare it as the truth. As humans we claim to have immense knowledge, but the truth in all of this knowledge has been replaced by metaphors and illusions; we make ourselves believe the lie and declare it as the truth.

In our society, human beings produce the moral impulse to not lie, but Nietzsche does not agree to the existing society or its ways, so he dismisses the idea of the truth as well. Nietzsche discusses how important language is in order to decipher the truth. It is questionable that language expresses all realities. Both language and writing can be easily deceptive, such as poetry and art. When trying to figure out what they mean, we have to observe several different perspectives in order to find the truth. Nietzsche argues that a person who has the ability to have multiple perspectives on a certain idea is one step closer to discovering the truth. However, most people will only try to make their own personal perspective into a reality rather than trying to explore the views of others. Nietzsche writes, “Human beings do not so much flee from being tricked as from being harmed by being tricked.” (p. 766). As human beings, we are willing to accept the truth only when it won’t harm us, otherwise we choose to be deceived by lies, because it is the safer alternative. I do not believe that Nietzsche is necessarily saying that the truth doesn’t exist, but rather that the truth is not something that most human beings can easily perceive.