Pick of the Day – John McKinlay
Marina Abramovi?:The Artist Is Present
Mala Gaonkar appointed Tate Trustee
Apples and Oranges
Pick of the Day – Richard Fowler
Narrowboat by Beth Edwards
Telling the Edward Hopper Story
Tate Modern is 10
food for thought
Ambiguity seems to be something we humans just aren’t very good at doing, as a general rule. We crave certainty and nothing generates that warm comfy insular feeling of certainty like the polarity of ‘us’ and ‘them’.
I’ve known people from many different religious and philosophical persuasions over the years. And some who see themselves as spiritual without following any particular practice. But there is one thing almost guaranteed to set off opinions like fireworks – eating meat.
I’ve heard every argument and counter-argument, from the apparently scientific ‘our teeth and digestive systems aren’t designed for it’, passing through (pardon the pun) to the philopshical ‘it’s bad karma and meat will make you more aggressive / angry’ and at the outer extreme ‘meat contains the thoughtforms of fear and death’ (obviously, not the special sauce people might have been hoping for).
It interests me because both camps are convinced that they’re right; so convinced that they believe they need to convince me.
Here are a couple of sites for the inquiring mind – use your own discrimination here, so to speak:
http://www.celestialhealing.net/physicalveg3.htm
http://www.freewebs.com/petpi/designedtoeatmeat.htm
And then there are the questions that read like zen koans:
Q1. What would you eat if you were on an island and there were only rabbits and no vegetation?
Answer: What are the rabbits living on then?
Q2. Chimpanzees don’t eat me so why do humans need to?
Answer: Yeah, apart from recent discoveries that they hunt other monkeys sometimes and have a liking for brains.
Q3. What about Eskimos – they can’t grow veg and pulses?
Answer: The clues are there.
As for me, I was a vegan for years – it has to be said, unsuccessfully. That says more about my planning skills than veganism itself. I had a healthcheck at work and discovered a soaring cholesterol level of 8.4. That was with no alcohol, no saturated fats, no smoking, healthy blood pressure, regular exercise and low bodyweight (I’m the size of a whippet, basically). Given the choice of taking medication or changing my diet, I opted to eat some fish and also take plant omega oils.
Over five years later, I had my cholesterol checked again and it’s……… well, it’s 8.5. So I can either say my diet change was pointless or I can say that thanks to the change in diet, my cholesterol has only gone up 0.1 in 5 years. Ambiguity, you see – it has its uses.
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LOL You seen my vegetarian blog in the community area havent you !!
I am vegetarian but, to me, I do not care how other people eat. It is up to them and their body. If they come here they will be served vegetarian food as meat is not allowed over the doorstep, but at theirs I would expect them to serve meat. It is up to either of us if we eat all our meal or not
We do not allow smoking in our home either. That is due to the fact that the visitors leave and the smell of them lingers for days.
Rude? Probably, but that is the way it is.
Hurrah, another lone voice of commonsense! I haven’t seen your blog yet but will take a peek now, safe in the knowledge that you’re an independent thinker. And they’re on the endangered list it seems.
The justifications of smokers is a another can of worms just waiting to be popped open.