The Green Watch, part 10.
2008 marks the beginning of Your Humble Narrator's fifteenth year as a vegetarian. Not proud, or bragging, just saying.
However.
If it takes a hundred years for a chest of drawers or cuckoo clock to be considered an antique, and twenty for an automobile, how long for a vice or a principle or a lifestyle?
I only bring this up because in the last year I've run into enuf new people with enuf new opinions about this central personal paradigm to eventually bring myself to bring my vegetarianism into question; to justify it, to rationalize it, to ask why. Not why I "converted" in the first place, everyone's been bored to bloody tears by that secret origin story a hundred thousand times already. The question to-day is why I continue to follow the path of least animal products, for what reason do I maintain the lifestyle, what is the point?
The conclusion that makes the most sense out of the most ridiculous ones I've come to is that I do it out of habit. I'm still a vegetarian this year because I was a vegetarian last year, and the year before that, etc.
Like most intangible mental constructs like lifestyle changes or tattoos or literary choices, everyone has their own reasons for taking on anything of this nature; pragmatic, ethics, health, etc. Where does habit fall into this range of grades? It's akin to watching your favorite television series long after it ceases to be relevant, for whatever reason: loyalty, community, or perhaps just because we always watch ER or The Office or Nip/Tuck because we always have. We're used to watching this or eating that, we're comfortable with our Johnny Depp movies and our green bean casseroles, but is this habit a rut in everything but name?
Granted, I haven't been a complete and total monk since 1994. There have been slips. A mouthful of lobster bisque here, Vietnamese noodles with chicken broth here, the odd scrap of bacon hidden under a lettuce leaf. But for the most part, all infractions to the charter were involuntary, accidental, or the result of a cruel prank. Still, after a decade and a half of abstinence, how would I even know if an edible offering contains an element I choose not to consume only by tasting it? Maybe it's like that first bite of solid food after a successful fast, and that bit of melon or cluster of rice or dab of yogurt tastes ten thousand times better than it ever did before, ten thousand times sweeter, ten thousand times creamier, ten thousand times more unctuous. Or, like the taste buds of a blind diner, amped up to compensate for their missing sense, picking apart the ingredients of the plate placed before them.
Absence makes the tongue grow fonder, even after fifteen years, and I can still tell.
Seriously, why am I doing this? I've been doing it for so long that the practice has evolved beyond pragmatic. I've come to terms with the fact that the rendering of animals for every last bit of their essence is a cornerstone of world economics. Am I healthier now than I was before I started? Less oxidized, in less pain, lighter in step and weight and conscience?
How much of a stretch would it be, how much of a dealbreaker would it be, how much of a violation of the terms of service I agreed to nonverbally would it be to step over the line again, if only briefly? (Call it "Meat Week" or something) How much of a reach would it have been to give in to that flash of temptation that appeared when I carved last year's Thanksgiving gobbler, or Xmas' oinker? After my present tenure, how far away has that previous lifestyle drifted, anyway? Next door? Next county? Or is it still a part of me, standing back-to-back with me, waiting for that one moment between moments when I'm precisely at my weakest to swap out identities?
Snap and grab. Chew and swallow. Over the lips, past the gums, look out stomach, here it comes. Just like that, and I'm back in the good graces of the dark side.
Seriously, why am I doing this?
Also, in case you missed it: An Eater's Manifesto.
⎋
However.
If it takes a hundred years for a chest of drawers or cuckoo clock to be considered an antique, and twenty for an automobile, how long for a vice or a principle or a lifestyle?
I only bring this up because in the last year I've run into enuf new people with enuf new opinions about this central personal paradigm to eventually bring myself to bring my vegetarianism into question; to justify it, to rationalize it, to ask why. Not why I "converted" in the first place, everyone's been bored to bloody tears by that secret origin story a hundred thousand times already. The question to-day is why I continue to follow the path of least animal products, for what reason do I maintain the lifestyle, what is the point?
The conclusion that makes the most sense out of the most ridiculous ones I've come to is that I do it out of habit. I'm still a vegetarian this year because I was a vegetarian last year, and the year before that, etc.
Like most intangible mental constructs like lifestyle changes or tattoos or literary choices, everyone has their own reasons for taking on anything of this nature; pragmatic, ethics, health, etc. Where does habit fall into this range of grades? It's akin to watching your favorite television series long after it ceases to be relevant, for whatever reason: loyalty, community, or perhaps just because we always watch ER or The Office or Nip/Tuck because we always have. We're used to watching this or eating that, we're comfortable with our Johnny Depp movies and our green bean casseroles, but is this habit a rut in everything but name?
Granted, I haven't been a complete and total monk since 1994. There have been slips. A mouthful of lobster bisque here, Vietnamese noodles with chicken broth here, the odd scrap of bacon hidden under a lettuce leaf. But for the most part, all infractions to the charter were involuntary, accidental, or the result of a cruel prank. Still, after a decade and a half of abstinence, how would I even know if an edible offering contains an element I choose not to consume only by tasting it? Maybe it's like that first bite of solid food after a successful fast, and that bit of melon or cluster of rice or dab of yogurt tastes ten thousand times better than it ever did before, ten thousand times sweeter, ten thousand times creamier, ten thousand times more unctuous. Or, like the taste buds of a blind diner, amped up to compensate for their missing sense, picking apart the ingredients of the plate placed before them.
Absence makes the tongue grow fonder, even after fifteen years, and I can still tell.
Seriously, why am I doing this? I've been doing it for so long that the practice has evolved beyond pragmatic. I've come to terms with the fact that the rendering of animals for every last bit of their essence is a cornerstone of world economics. Am I healthier now than I was before I started? Less oxidized, in less pain, lighter in step and weight and conscience?
How much of a stretch would it be, how much of a dealbreaker would it be, how much of a violation of the terms of service I agreed to nonverbally would it be to step over the line again, if only briefly? (Call it "Meat Week" or something) How much of a reach would it have been to give in to that flash of temptation that appeared when I carved last year's Thanksgiving gobbler, or Xmas' oinker? After my present tenure, how far away has that previous lifestyle drifted, anyway? Next door? Next county? Or is it still a part of me, standing back-to-back with me, waiting for that one moment between moments when I'm precisely at my weakest to swap out identities?
Snap and grab. Chew and swallow. Over the lips, past the gums, look out stomach, here it comes. Just like that, and I'm back in the good graces of the dark side.
Seriously, why am I doing this?
Also, in case you missed it: An Eater's Manifesto.
⎋