February 1, 2022
Big lies. So many. Lies.
What if I told you our lives and our economy are built on a generations long pile of lies? Might I be correct?
“A ‘mass psychosis’ is an epidemic of madness, and it occurs when a large portion of society loses touch with reality and descends into delusions” (Is a Mass Psychosis the Greatest Threat to Humanity?, 1:36). Notable examples of such a phenomenon would be witch hunts in Europe and America as well as 20th-century totalitarianism.
If you are all “woke” and politically correct and/or convinced you need animal protein, you may wish to stop reading now. This will devolve into a rant. Get over it, get lost, whatever keeps your heart rate down. I was a bloated, sickly fool going along with societal norms until cancer finally helped wake me. Even with the learning curve introduced by cancer in 2004, it took my slow brain at least five more years to figure out what my body was trying to teach me. Pain is a great teacher, while joy is a much more pleasant teacher. I admit to decades of being a dumb, happy idiot sheep-like person, but eventually aware enough to change. I feel fine about saying what I want, while readers are free to ignore it, get pissed off or maybe learn something and change.
Lead, follow or get the out of the way, you decide. Be master of your own domain.
Republican House Speaker Liz Cheney was voted out of her position last year. Why? Because she had the audacity to call Obama’s successor’s big lie, a big lie. That’s where we are now. A sadly significant number of our 331 million Americans are proudly and willfully ignorant and love it. Lies can be very dangerous, even deadly. As evidence, note our decades long health care crisis and the January 6th attack on the US Capital.
Politics is about the rules by which we collectively coexist. Politics and religion impact religion and politics and therefore impact nearly everything about being human while existing on this planet. “Mass psychosis” can be applied regarding much more than politics. “Not getting political” is a nonsensical idea. We are all aboard a moving train and there’s no escaping the reality that each of our decisions and actions impacts everything else. It’s impossible to remain neutral on a moving train, per Gandhi himself. We’re all part of one energy field. The unseen world around is fascinating. Our very feelings and thoughts are measurable “things” within this universal energy field. No matter how you label the rules you support, our actions are our real “votes”.
Might “our” love affair with overbuilt, over padded, over weight footwear be another example of “mass psychosis”? That’s a topic for some other blog, but I would say YES. People are easily brainwashed by hearing lies they like to hear by people they respect and enjoy. Comfort traps are an easy sell and tend to be highly profitable. Comfort foods are often traps.
The main topic here is nutrition, but I believe it’s important to view it within a larger context. We are of the earth, part of it. We are literally what we eat after hour bodies work miracles to transform our food into energy. Our bodies are energy, constantly changing. Everything is alive, everything is energy. Our energy is part of a relatively brief life. The universe will reclaim our energy. We either savor and enjoy the ride, or not. We can play the odds and quite possibly extend our time and the quality of that time. Should the main purpose of life be to enjoy the miracles of life? Why would be pay a premium for footwear that hurts our mobility over time? Why would we vote for people who believe in trashing our environment while putting more wealth and resources in fewer hands? Why would we consume foods that greatly increase our odds of developing suicidal depression, dementia, type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer, heart disease, etcetera? Should we use this gift of life to live with “ease” or dis-ease? This begs the question, if we learn to live with much greater “ease” while seeing so many people harming themselves, should we attempt to help? If we see someone about to step off a cliff, are we morally obligated to help, even though the help may not be wanted? If we reach out to them, they may pull us down to our death. Or if we speak out to them, they may react with hate. But we can try, perhaps we have some obligation to try?
As humans, our great strengths are our ability to adapt, cooperate, problem solve and move great distances by foot. By nature’s standards we are fragile “wimps”. Yet we dominate the world as the only species that takes more from nature than it needs. That ability to adapt is what allows us to survive on animal based foods, during times of lack, which was invaluable and life-saving before affordable transport and cooling systems were developed. Surviving till a lack of plant sourced foods passes is not the same as thriving optimally. Our adaptability has led us to a world filled with trap doors. Addictions to junk food, junk thoughts, illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco, porn, sex, pharmaceuticals, greed, hate, gambling, etcetera is the downside to our brilliant adaptability. Acquired tastes, such as sniffing glue and huffing gasoline can destroy us much faster than eating a strict diet of steak and eggs. We adapt, our bodies can, for a time, try to survive nearly any addiction we can take on. If deaths from diet and lifestyle induced chronic diseases were viewed as “slow motion suicide”, suicide would be the top cause of death in “developed” nations! How brilliant we are. Based on our economically influenced political system, “we” incentivize the development of foods that destroy our lives over a long enough period of time, that it’s not viewed as suicidal. And, that same system abuses our animal friends in most heinous ways while “we” laugh about the joys of eating dead pig ass, while this disgustingly inhumane food “system” pollutes our air, water and soil in extremely destructive ways. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves, therefore what we do to ourselves we do to the earth. Simple. Right?
If I proposed that our food system and how the vast majority of people fuel themselves is based on a “mass psychosis”, I’d be spot on correct. The belief that humans need animal sourced foods to survive or thrive is an epically destructive example of lies built upon lies. The popularity now of the Keto “diet” is a great example of “mass psychosis”.
The simple truth is that humans thrive best on an all or primarily plant sourced nutrition. Effectively, we are well served by forgetting about carbs, protein, iron, calcium, vitamins, etc. and realize there are two types of foods. Plant sourced and animal sourced. One heals and nourishes ideally while the other type, in excess, leads to the highest all causes mortality rate! To be clear, the ideal is nominally processed or whole plant based foods. Processed sugar and oil are not healing foods.
People are not a vultures, maggots or mountain lions. You have more in common with a gorilla, a deer, a horse, a cow or a rabbit. We are primarily herbivorous running beings, hence our affinity for horses and dogs? Our dog, Snickers the Goldendoodle is nearly fourteen years old, a happy and healthy “pup” who’s been eating mostly or all plant based foods most of her life. It happened organically as my diet shifted to plants and I caught her eating veggies from our garden. Dogs are omnivores, but that too is a topic for another time. A topic which many “vegan” or plant powered people would disagree. There are a lot of things vegans argue or debate about amongst themselves. For example, I enjoy some honey in my diet. I understand that the plant pollens are mixed with digestive enzymes from the insect kingdom, bees. That said I prefer maple syrup, which is simply cooked down from tree sap. Both are “processed” nutrient dense sugars to be enjoyed in moderation.
Human’s teeth, jaws, long digestive systems, body chemistry are all ideally suited for processing and thriving on plant sourced foods. We see more colors than true carnivores and are evolved to find colorful fruits, roots, seeds, nuts, etc. We are cooperative beings who evolved to pass the knowledge on from generation to generation as to which plants are edible and which ones can heal various wounds or conditions.
The ongoing popularity of humans cutting out carbs to put themselves into a state of ketosis is mind blowing! How desperate are we to confirm the bias of the lies we believe? People are desperate to lose the unhealthy excess weight acquired from eating ultra processed plants and animal sourced foods, they’ll believe nearly anything! Even if that means eating “vulture” food.
Humans are brilliant idiots. We have blind spots in our knowledge. I wonder how much more Albert Einstein may have taught us had he been able to calculate the longevity associated with an all plant based diet? He was tuned into vegetarianism, a great baby step. My logical mind assumed that people would love to hear about how a plant based diet can not only prevent coronary artery disease, many cancers and more, but even heal people who were sent home to die. “Spontaneous” recovery is not really spontaneous but that healing happens more than we tend to hear of. Frankly, after suffering thru cancer and years of fear, I was pissed off that nearly the entire population was pushing “shit” foods that promote cancer growth. Doctors, nurses, dieticians, psychologists, journalists, educators, seemingly as uninformed as most everyone! It’s the blind leading the blind with nearly all driven by fear and greed. How can the person who healed a deadly heart disease issue with plants and exercise support the former 45th president? How can someone be so brilliant and such an idiot simultaneously? The person with a Trump 2020 sign still in their yard, alongside a “Back The Blue” sign who doesn’t see the irony of supporting the man who promoted “Stop The Steal” and sent them to ransack the capital, killing the police along the way? How did we get here, to a place where ketosis and the all carnivore diet are fads? People claim to be environmentalists while eating animal foods daily? Willful ignorance has become a sport and badge of twisted honor for tens millions of proud Americans with access to the internet! The world wide web is expanding our idiocy faster than our brilliance all too often.
Speaking of brilliant idiots, I listened to meathead Joe Rogan interview Dave Chappelle. Bloodthirsty, vegan bashing Joe. Dave is brilliant on many topics, but we all have out blind spots. I wonder if he really blames salt for out health care crisis? Or is that just a bit? After running about sixteen miles out to his hometown in a pair of thin sandals, there was Dave hanging out in the village. He was curious about my footwear and the distance I ran. After a brief explanation, it seemed clear that humans ability to run 100 mile ultras wasn’t on his radar and no evident interest in plant based foods impact.
As tough as guys like Joe Rogan are, their wild success is more a testament to how misinformed most people remain. People love a great set of lies that supports their tastes, goals and desires. There’s a real book out there, “Meat is For Pussies”. Joe should read it.
You get the idea. Even our dog is eating plants virtually 100% most days, most of her already long life. 13+ dog years is getting her close to being the equivalent of 100 relative to equivalent human years. When I see people eating meat, egg and dairy, I’ll sometimes say I wouldn’t feed that shit to my dog. Cause it’s true and I’m free to be truthful. “Vegheads” might laugh at this, some vegans are deeply offended at the idea of “mistreating” a dog this way. It’s silly the vegans bicker about. I eat honey sometimes, it’s cholesterol free, but many vegans claim honey is not vegan. I get that there digestive enzymes from insects and I support bees by supporting honey harvests. Plant more flowers, feed the bees! There are plenty of preachy and batshit crazy vegans. We can spread the good word without throwing fake or real blood on people. Just about any tactic can work at any given time. When the student’s ready, the teacher will come, in whatever form works for them. I get that sharing a gorgeous photo of a vegan meal may get a lot more likes than telling people the many nasty things consuming animal based foods can do to their health, or castigating people for supporting the abuse, torture and murder of sentient beings. Sure you may love the taste of fried pigs ass meat, but pigs are as smart as dogs. They think and feel. It’s hypocritical to claim to be an animal lover and, or environmentalist while supporting animal agriculture.
Virgos want to help people, we tend to attempt to; inspire, educate, set an example. I’d like to get into those stubborn brains and rewire that mess. Being into year twelve of an all plant powered “diet”, it’s become common to see people I’ve tried to talk up plant foods with in the past and then see they’ve passed on, often so young. Going on sixty now, and I’m optimistic I can keep feeling good, while running ultra marathons, even hundred mile races for years to come. No guarantees, but we can and perhaps should do all we can to slant the odds in our favor. That’s what’s best for the earth and those we share it with.
The longer most folks consume plants and think more like “vegans”, the less likely we are to want to shout the “truth” off the rooftops shotgun style to anyone who might listen. The economy is “rigged” against truth in my opinion. When the student’s ready, the teacher will come. But so many of the “students” die first. What to do?