Rounded Apathy
Longing to return to stardust
- Aug 8, 2022
- 772
...but also that my body may prefer me to be eating the products of horrible animal slavery. Sometimes. Others doing so seems to be killing me. Some context, and sorry for the rambling:
After my best friend CTB nearly six years ago, I completely unexpectedly began a very quick transition to veganism. I'd made some conscious dietary changes before but never anything like this. I just became so excruciatingly aware of how everything is always suffering, and questioned what I right I had to cause more so that I could be alive? A former friend's comment helped me work it out at the time by pointing out the system is closed; if I malnourish myself, then instead, both I and the people in my life who care for me suffer. Great. Fucking cool, no way out. So I just quit animal products, and did so in a country where it was quite a challenge as it wasn't a very known concept and stuck to my guns over 90% of the time, and it was fine. I barely noticed any difference in myself, if at all.
After some time though I abandoned capital v "Veganism" as I came to feel that the reason I was doing it - minimization of harm and suffering - was not always the result of the vegan choice. One prime example was speaking to this fellow vegan traveller in Central America about this prepacked thing of mixed nuts she was eating. I was always conscious of the global aspect so would eat things like eggs in countries where I saw the chickens laying them running around. She instead "didn't consider eggs food" so instead chose to buy this product grown in drought-stricken California most likely, contained in this awful plastic that will be around for a thousand years, which was shipped on an airplane spewing emissions then carted to the place we were. And this is somehow better for all life? Sure, lady.
I later learned the real definition of the practice as set out by the organization that coined the term and the principles is more nuanced, and that she was arguably making the non-vegan choice. But it's all splitting hairs, labels, and whatever. So now I say for convenience's sake, I'm a vegetarian who generally eats vegan, besides animal byproducts I can get from either wholesome sourced or food that would otherwise be wasted.
However.
As I've already written about here, I have some health problems involving the...gastro-intestinal system. Part of this is having bowel movements of a type that won't destroy my ass due to excessive hardness or loseness. I'm also really thin and have lost weight lately. Well, when you eat this kind of diet, it is fucking hard to eat well and not get a shit ton more fibre relative to the amount of calories you should be having, and this has caused and is currently causing problems, I feel. I can just load up on stuff like peanut butter only to such an extent as eating lots of even good fats tends to make me feel nauseous and bloated. So I've occasionally been buying eggs from a couple of vendors at a nearby farmers' market since this season began. But what have I been noticing? I am often getting sick either because of, or coincidentally right after almost every time, eating them. Like, a day of significant stomach pain, chills, intense tiredness, and destructive dump-type-sick. Are the eggs contaminated? Legislation here is they have to be graded to be sold even at a market which includes washing, so I can't imagine this is it. Has my body decided eggs are just now not acceptable? I've been eating them on and off for years after giving up animal things in general.
What the hell do you even want, stupid body? I'm doing a food journal now to try and figure out why you keep fucking freaking out all the time but I'm also running a caloric deficit and don't have weight to lose. Am I supposed to eat shit supermarket eggs from chickens that life in horrible little cages owned by horrible giant corporations turning a profit from your eternal imprisonment and exploitation of your body and its natural functions? Should I try eating cheese, which is the same but for cows? For fuck's sake, do you want meat? You want the flesh of dead animal in you or something? I know that things like carrots and also legitimately alive and we kill and eat them, but let me tell you I can pull a carrot out of the ground, clean, cook and eat it with much less difficulty than I could slaughter an animal and shove its remains in my gaping maw.
Why can't I just be like vegetation that subsists on sunlight, water, and the nutrients in the soil? Why can't I be like a rock that just exists without bothering anything? I hate this animal form that perpetually needs to consume just in order to keep functioning, that what it needs to consume is largely other sentient things that experience some kind of pain or suffering or things like that have to die in order to harvest something edible, and that maybe worst of all, I can't even figure out after so long what it is that this accursed body in particular even wants or needs in particular in order to be healthy. It is all such a sick joke of existence, and I don't know if the punchline has yet come, but so far it is not goddamn funny at all.
After my best friend CTB nearly six years ago, I completely unexpectedly began a very quick transition to veganism. I'd made some conscious dietary changes before but never anything like this. I just became so excruciatingly aware of how everything is always suffering, and questioned what I right I had to cause more so that I could be alive? A former friend's comment helped me work it out at the time by pointing out the system is closed; if I malnourish myself, then instead, both I and the people in my life who care for me suffer. Great. Fucking cool, no way out. So I just quit animal products, and did so in a country where it was quite a challenge as it wasn't a very known concept and stuck to my guns over 90% of the time, and it was fine. I barely noticed any difference in myself, if at all.
After some time though I abandoned capital v "Veganism" as I came to feel that the reason I was doing it - minimization of harm and suffering - was not always the result of the vegan choice. One prime example was speaking to this fellow vegan traveller in Central America about this prepacked thing of mixed nuts she was eating. I was always conscious of the global aspect so would eat things like eggs in countries where I saw the chickens laying them running around. She instead "didn't consider eggs food" so instead chose to buy this product grown in drought-stricken California most likely, contained in this awful plastic that will be around for a thousand years, which was shipped on an airplane spewing emissions then carted to the place we were. And this is somehow better for all life? Sure, lady.
I later learned the real definition of the practice as set out by the organization that coined the term and the principles is more nuanced, and that she was arguably making the non-vegan choice. But it's all splitting hairs, labels, and whatever. So now I say for convenience's sake, I'm a vegetarian who generally eats vegan, besides animal byproducts I can get from either wholesome sourced or food that would otherwise be wasted.
However.
As I've already written about here, I have some health problems involving the...gastro-intestinal system. Part of this is having bowel movements of a type that won't destroy my ass due to excessive hardness or loseness. I'm also really thin and have lost weight lately. Well, when you eat this kind of diet, it is fucking hard to eat well and not get a shit ton more fibre relative to the amount of calories you should be having, and this has caused and is currently causing problems, I feel. I can just load up on stuff like peanut butter only to such an extent as eating lots of even good fats tends to make me feel nauseous and bloated. So I've occasionally been buying eggs from a couple of vendors at a nearby farmers' market since this season began. But what have I been noticing? I am often getting sick either because of, or coincidentally right after almost every time, eating them. Like, a day of significant stomach pain, chills, intense tiredness, and destructive dump-type-sick. Are the eggs contaminated? Legislation here is they have to be graded to be sold even at a market which includes washing, so I can't imagine this is it. Has my body decided eggs are just now not acceptable? I've been eating them on and off for years after giving up animal things in general.
What the hell do you even want, stupid body? I'm doing a food journal now to try and figure out why you keep fucking freaking out all the time but I'm also running a caloric deficit and don't have weight to lose. Am I supposed to eat shit supermarket eggs from chickens that life in horrible little cages owned by horrible giant corporations turning a profit from your eternal imprisonment and exploitation of your body and its natural functions? Should I try eating cheese, which is the same but for cows? For fuck's sake, do you want meat? You want the flesh of dead animal in you or something? I know that things like carrots and also legitimately alive and we kill and eat them, but let me tell you I can pull a carrot out of the ground, clean, cook and eat it with much less difficulty than I could slaughter an animal and shove its remains in my gaping maw.
Why can't I just be like vegetation that subsists on sunlight, water, and the nutrients in the soil? Why can't I be like a rock that just exists without bothering anything? I hate this animal form that perpetually needs to consume just in order to keep functioning, that what it needs to consume is largely other sentient things that experience some kind of pain or suffering or things like that have to die in order to harvest something edible, and that maybe worst of all, I can't even figure out after so long what it is that this accursed body in particular even wants or needs in particular in order to be healthy. It is all such a sick joke of existence, and I don't know if the punchline has yet come, but so far it is not goddamn funny at all.
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