I stopped by the Dunkin Donuts on the way to work this morning and bought a dozen donuts. I left with 12 of my favorites, but no blueberry donuts. I like blueberry donuts. But Dunkin doesn’t make one. They make something called a blueberry donut, but if you look at the ingredients, you may notice one ingredient conspicuously missing. You guessed it. No blueberries. In my opinion, you can’t make a blueberry donut without blueberries.
I guess Dunkin makes a donut with some blue food colored specs and a bit of artificial flavoring and they call it a blueberry donut. They can call it whatever they want. It’s not a blueberry donut. Maybe this bugs me because it seems like false advertising. It feels untruthful, and a little arogant. As if you can make something true just by declaring it so. It reminds me of one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes: What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
There is an amazing truth in that statement. A realization that it doesn’t matter what you call a thing or what you may pretend it is or isn’t. The truth of what it really is still remains. It’s true of donuts, roses, and people.