Following this diet began as a venture into sexy.
That shiz got boring when it took too long.
But when I started eating more natural, organic, juicy-like-a-Brazilian-butt-stuff (versus the vegan form of junk food), I went to bed with Buddha’s belly and woke up with Ghandi’s (that’s a metaphor; I’m not a spiritual Dahmer Bundy chimera. Despite popular opinion).
(To be fair, he did request we body buffet him at his going away party.)
That was when veganism veered without my permission into the territory of being about being less douchey. And I thought I was going to lose my whole identity. Could I carry on being my brand of “kinda an asshole, kinda sweet?” The answer is yes. Because no one has a true brand. None of us. Sometimes we’re nice, sometimes we’re dicks, and sometimes three shrinks will try to tell us we’re bipolar. And what do we do about it? Take ’em out Dexter Morgan style and get a fourth opinion, obviously.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
(Great. Now everyone knows what’s really happening when I rando-grin)
But underlying my sarcastic, defensive, and cruel retorts I-try-to-not-say-anymore-but-come-naturally-to-mind-so-easily-that-it-hurts, there’s a well of kindness I’m still not sure how to access easily. And what I do observe is that some hardcore vegans forget (while getting caught up in diet dogma) a basic principle of their own philosophy – that compassion extends to all creatures – including fellow people.
An example – my sister likes to put the sign of the Jesus-cross on my forehead whenever we part ways. Do I believe in her religion? No. Do I have some traumatizing but-I-suppose-there-are-altar-boys-who’ve-had-it-worse style associations with the Catholic church? Yes. And did my sister anoint me with this sign I don’t believe in, using a finger full of Chicken Little carcass grease last week? Yes. This all happened.
And there was a time I would have morphed into a Jersey [Sh]whore ’bout it.
But that’s the thing about trying to be less of an asshole – you see the bigger picture.
It’s my sister, she loves me, she wasn’t doing it to be passive aggressive, and she was just using the tools that help her access the same cosmic force we all live by and to whom some assign names. As for the chicken grease, that might have been a bit thoughtless, but she acknowledged that. And even if she does do it again, I’ll simply do the compassionate thing:
Clockwork Orange her ass into watching Earthlings.
For 24 hours.
On repeat.
So, it’s not easy but it might be the only diet I haven’t gotten bored with.
While there are some yes-and details about that which are awesomely transcendent, language does a shitty job of conveying them. Sorry ’bout it.
Instead, I’ll say this much: When I eat energizing foods, I get jazzed and want – not have – to jog for an hour each day. Even when I do less, the scale numbers drop. Once they dropped by ten pounds, I crossed the FitBit off my list. Why bother? My workouts are about fun. My meals are exciting. I’m never lethargic and never starving. Maybe that’s what drives a selfish bish like me into feeling a bit kinder. And it’s not just because I’m not eating deep fried corpse. But for once I don’t have to monitor input output like a sadistic bank that charges you hidden fees which show up as assfat. And when I stop worrying about vanity-concerns, I can focus on other people.
And I’m still not sure about the human versus animal compassion hierarchy. Or what to do when diet and attempts at being like the Buddhist Monk version of Jesus crash head on like those two trains that got mixed signals that one time.
Still I try. Like yesterday, for instance. I usually don’t like to share my attempts at doing nice things (‘cause it comes off all “look at me!”) on social media, but this dude I respect (Mr. Russell Brand) asked his Youtube viewers about something good they’ve done recently – in an effort to focus on positives instead of negatives. Interestingly enough, I’d done something earlier that day when I met a lady called Cathy holding up a cardboard sign saying “I’m homeless” and I mentioned it only because he’d asked people to – but also I had motives of my own. That hierarchy o’ life reverence reared its head slightly and I desired a bit of input.
(Well, even Jesus kicked over a few church tables in the name of do-gooding.)
Growing a conscience orchard with clay soil results in a forest of confusion fruiting trees.
And it’s so stupid that I even worry about things like this.
Especially when my inner Jiminy Cricket still suggests things like, “let’s tell the children accosting your dog that she has rabies and they’re going to catch it if they keep pressing on her so hard. If that fails, tell them their mother’s been rammed by a car and is pinned into a tree and they need to hurry and go to her to say their final goodbyes. If that fails, tell them Adventuretime’s being cancelled. Then cry a little yourself at the thought of Adventuretime being cancelled.”
Luckily, I can realize there’s another voice somewhere in there.
And even though the reasonable one I’ve begun hearing and whose advice I try to heed has Dwayne Johnson’s voice (instead of the Morgan Freeman one I ordered), at least I didn’t, ya know, get Mike Tyson’s. So, there’s that.
In sum: The road to hell isn’t paved with good intentions or questionable good deeds.
It’s not paved with anything.
Except an excess of hookers and drugs and being an asshole. Probably.