The First Lotus Blossoms
July 12–16, Amherst, MA USA
Seasonal Memoir Entry #14
What is the statistical chance of being struck by lightning while walking with a golf umbrella, alone, along a busy tree- and house-lined road, with lightning within a three-mile radius? Will my relatives remember me more for my contribution to the family, or for my stupidity? Some questions are better left unanswered. The rain has returned, along with its cathartic effect on mood and blood pressure. With so much moisture in the ground, the mushrooms are flourishing. I know better than to guess which ones are edible, which will give you a buzz, and which will kill you. Ha.
We hiked up Taylor’s Notch Trail to the Summit House with our friends, TJ and Kate Lepore. I realized that I cannot do anything without breaking into a hearty sweat. “Dad, you sweat just sitting still.” (Thanks, Camille.) Are the numerous and obviously well-functioning sweat glands a sign of evolution (apes to humans to better dissipate heat), or am I a remnant from the Neanderthals? I don’t think I’ll ask Tina that one.
Tina has officially re-started her career in nursing, having given up being a Nurse Practitioner when we went overseas (it proved too difficult to navigate licensure; nurses are not treated as well overseas; and the challenges of working in a school that your husband is leading). She’s tacked her trajectory in order to explore a new specialty: end-of-life care. Palliative care, specifically hospice care, has always intrigued her, and it plays to her strengths. Bless her. As she does her training at a local, private facility, including private and group home visits, she’s re-reading Being Mortal by Atul Gwande, a must read for anybody who plans on leaving the good Earth in the future.
Why is it that we in the West (in particular) have such a hard time talking about and dealing with death, an event that we all have an appointment for? We go blindly into our old age, with or without a health care proxy, and then turn over our care to a system that puts its energy into keeping you alive rather than landing life’s plane ride in a gentle and controlled manner. Keeping somebody alive, when that person is terminal (and sometimes unconscious), too often leads to unbearable suffering. And when we keep a loved one suffering in his last days or weeks, just because we can’t deal with the thought of them being gone, then who are we really serving?
It’s been illuminating living overseas and spending time in developing countries, or with those from places where death can arrive quickly, and without notice. The grieving is intense and rarely repressed or compartmentalized, and the dead is honored. Then, day-to-day life more or less resumes, and in short order. We are just so far removed from suffering and death in the West, and to our detriment, imho.
Tina’s foray into hospice care will surely spark these necessary conversations in our family, whether people want to have them or not (this is one of Tina’s superpowers). The topic the other day with some friends of ours was the various methods the elderly have articulated how they will die by suicide if their quality of life nosedives at the end. These included overdosing on oxycontin, a self-inflicted gunshot, and other macabre acts. Something’s gone horribly wrong that this is what’s on their minds. Let’s do better.
When terminal, my playbook will include pain management over tubes and respirators, and mindfulness-based hospice care, preferably somewhere with A/C and cable television (I’m serious!). And a pet (dog or mouse, not a cat). I’m hoping through voice-to-text capability, I can record my thoughts and reflections, and share them with those I love. Most of all, I would like a dignified passing.
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Essay alert!
My Vegetarian Kick has Pushed My Privilege Off the Charts
Sorting through the hypocrisy of food righteousness
Perhaps I was feeling a bit hypocritical, precious, or privileged, or all three, as my reading list moved from Eating Animals to Inconspicuous Consumption to Wild Souls (with Last Child in the Woods waiting in the wings), for I got to thinking about my choice to eat less meat (but still fish) and more plants (but not the disgusting ones like beets), but still eat dairy (I love eggs and cheese!), and how I was really just navigating a continuum that is rooted in privilege. I felt fraudulent. I based my choices on three considerations: ethics, environment, health. Before we get into those, let’s first dig into the continuum of choices.
Here is the rationale for each position, as told through fictional “Zach”:
- Zach eats as an indiscriminate omnivore, for no other reason than that’s the food the industrial complex (in kahoots with Madison Avenue) pushes on him morning, noon, and night.
- Zach now wants to eat healthier, so he stops eating hot dogs, ground meat, and anything he cannot identify as animal flesh; he becomes a discriminate omnivore.
- Zach gets concerned about the environmental impact of factory farming, so he now only eats farm to table meat, preferably sourced locally. He wants to know where his meat has come from, and what the animals have been fed (probably, grass and corn casserole, with a dash of antibiotics).
- Zach gets concerned about the health warnings around red meat consumption, so he cuts out beef and lamb (and fatty pork while he’s at it). He becomes a lean-meat-for-protein guy.
- Zach now believes he has a moral obligation to do no harm to sentient beings, but he struggles to draw the line on which animals this applies to, after reading the scientific literature and 19th century philosophers. He arbitrarily choses “animals with legs”, and continues to eat fish, dairy, and eggs. He becomes a pescatarian.
- Zach now believes he should eat no animal, sentient or not, so he becomes a vegetarian.
- Zach now decides to eat no dairy products, as it is invariably produced under stressful circumstances (for the animals and the workers), and it is produced for the sole purpose of human consumption; he becomes a vegan.
- Zach now goes fully organic, for health and environmental reasons (pesticides), though this comes more from the organic food lobby than anywhere else. He still doesn’t really know what’s in or on his vegetables.
- Zach now stops eating factory farmed food altogether, including plants, due to his environmental concerns (degradation of soil) and shoddy labor practices.
- Zach now stops eating locally farmed food, and is forced to forage his local area for food: mushrooms, plants, and insects are most readily available where he lives. He becomes very thin as a result.
- Zach now becomes concerned about his impact on insects and all the other living things that he comes across, including plants, so he doesn’t leave the house, for fear of stepping on them. He develops scurvy. He’s barely alive.
- Zach eventually starves to death, as no edible food is available that doesn’t derive from soy or corn.
Of course, the last few scenarios are tongue-in-cheek, but I provide them to prove the point that our food choices are all part of a continuum, where the rationale for each “position” is pretty arbitrary (i.e. the principles that underlay them can be easily deconstructed), and the global impact of our choices is minimal (or futile).
Thus, this brings us to the question: When on the continuum does someone become “right” in their position on food? (“Righteous” is a very different question, and one that starts pretty early on in the progression) To begin to answer this question, it can help to apply three lenses, and see where one might land on the continuum.
Source: author
Ethical perspective: Animals are sentient creatures, fish included, and I have a moral obligation to not participate in their harm.
Environmental perspective: Factory farming is brutal on the environment (not to mention the animals), has put traditional farmers out of business, and only exists because we insist on eating affordable meat. Thus, I will not support this industry on any level.
Health perspective: We don’t need to eat meat to get enough protein, and plant-based diets have proven to be the best for one’s health and wellness.
Now that we have a frame of reference (note that the Ethical (E) perspective allows you to satisfy all three considerations), let’s look at the concept of privilege, defined by Peggy McIntosh as “an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious.”
Source: author
Adding a “privilege curve” to our continuum illustrates the inverse relationship between privilege and our choices. For example, as wealth increases, so does our ability to make an increasingly privileged choice. The same rings true for geography, as sustainable farms are not sprinkled equitably across the globe, but tend to be found in developed countries.
So, “right” is proportional to privilege, and we can make the following statements:
- It’s a privilege to have the resources to make choices that don’t negatively impact animals or the environment.
- It’s a privilege to say “protect the environment” as an American, and tell a burgeoning middle class in developing countries to refrain from meat consumption.
- It’s a privilege to be able to choose healthy foods over substandard meat fried in oils.
- It’s a privilege to not have to worry about the negative financial implications of the local factory farm closing.
Where will I now choose to land, after living nearly three months as a pescatarian (eye-rolling is permitted)? As a little experiment last night, I included baked pork in some Mexican food, and while it was tasty, I really didn’t get the ‘wow’ that I thought I would, so I easily could have foregone it.
I don’t like to work in absolutes, though that makes things cleaner. It is also a very masculine way to approach a dilemma: through rules that do not leave space for empathy or nuances in a particular context. I will instead employ the idea of moral particularism, articulated by philosopher Lori Gruen. Gruen believes the most moral way to act is to pay attention to all the features of a particular case, where you can engage in both emotional and rational thinking, and develop a bespoke rationale for your choice. According to Emma Marris in Wild Souls (p. 41), “Each case is different, after all. This approach leaves lots of room for context, relationships, and feelings to matter.”
Is this a cop-out? Perhaps. But it’s also a more pragmatic approach, and something that offers a better chance to stick. Let’s again look at the three considerations:
- Ethical: Can I really ensure I do not eat any meat that comes from an animal that was abused? I think so, especially if I err on the side of conservatism.
- Environmental: Can I limit my business to local farms that practice environmental sustainability and ethical treatment of animals. That’s easy where I live.
- Health: Can I choose a plant-based diet, and still get all the nutrients and energy I need to be active. Yes. I am thankful to have the resources for this.
I am not trying to litigate whether eating animals is ethical, eco-friendly, or healthful. Such a choice needs to be made by the individual, in his/her/their particular context. Rather, it is the thought process to such decisions that I find intellectually stimulating. Now let’s see what’s in the fridge!
You cannot applaud your own story
