To truly understand
a system, you need to be able to stand outside it.
That is damned
difficult with capitalism – it is a system that pervades all
aspects of our lives – and increasingly so – leading us all to
stress, mental health problems, physical health problems, family
problems, division, conflict and death.
Dramatic? Aye –
living in today's world, fully engaged as a working class person, at
any part of that class spectrum is a dramatic, unhealthy thing. But
how to escape? With great difficulty as an individual in the UK/ the
West/ the developed and developing world.
I’m going to start
this blogpiece with a recipe. I'm asked – what does a vegan eat in
a hurry? Well tonight, we were on a budget – well – no-one could
be arsed doing the shopping – so we “made do” with what was in
the cupboard. This is what I made.
Neil’s Dahl - serves two...
200 grams of red
lentils
50 grams of split
peas
800 ml of water (and
a wee bit more if needed)
Teaspoon of turmeric
Teaspoon of savoury
yeast extract
teaspoon salt
For the flat bread
Pizza dough recipe
for breadmaker, substituting sugar with maple syrup and butter with
olive oil
“Easy Garlic”
Method...
Use a breadmaker to make dough. Or make dough by hand. Or buy a couple of ready made nan breads or other flatbreads.
Measure 200 grams of red lentils and 50 grams of split peas. If you only have lentils - 250 grams of lentils.
add 800 ml of water,
a teaspoon of turmeric,
a teaspoon of yeast extract
and a teaspoon of
salt;
simmer until the water is absorbed. Add a bit more water if
needed.
Roll out the dough quite thinly.
Fry cumin seeds and onions.
Add the onions and some of the cumin seeds to the dahl
Fry the dough on both sides (almost dry) and add oil to the bread and some quick garlic.
Serve.. eat... feel stuffed.
Anyway, some have tried the
“moneyless” thing as individuals or communities – but when it
comes down to it, those who do, are still reliant on the system- its
cast of off’s etc.
I’ve no answer to
this – I don't have a solution for you to escape. I don't have a
recipe for you to take yourself out of the system in which to survive
you must consume – you must compete – you must offer yourself as
a machine.
But I have taken
myself out of aspect of the system – and in doing so, it has laid
the system bare in front of me – easy to see; obvious in its
workings, collusions and manipulations.
When I was younger,
I was aware of Nestle and what it did. But being wrapped up in the
system, I really couldn't see how avoiding a product or two could
help make change. But, after reading about it in more detail, I
stopped buying Nestle products – and I haven't bought them
knowingly for at least half my life now (I’m 50). But this didn't
take me outside a system. It just made me swap products. I killed
and exploited through other chocolate bars and ice lollies. But not
babies, I hope.
I was still being
exploited by employers and manipulated by corporations.
To take yourself out
of a system, truly, it has to be something you enjoy. I think those
religious festivals in which you give things up – whether it be
Ramadan, lent or whatever – originate in spiritual discovery. Ways
to really appreciate what is going on around you – where things
come from. What your bodily needs really are. Appreciation.
Giving something up
must be something you will make excuses for. Something you will say,
“But I need some pleasure in life,” or “its the whole system
that needs changed...” when confronted about your exploitation of
poor workers. Giving up Snickers when you can substitute that bar
for something else is really not giving anything up. Go to the
source. Give up the ingredients. Give up the culture around that
10am fag/e cigarette break. Really give something up.
And this is where my
giving stuff up comes in.
I always
experimented with myself. From physical stuff like testing freezing
sea water swimming in midwinter, to parachuting (im petrified of
heights), twice, to hill walking, to travelling though countries on
my own etc...
But these
experiments only effect me. They make no changes in the world I live
in. So then I tried experiments where I gave stuff up – a year at
a time. Alcohol – a great love of mine, went for a year. Then
sugar. Then meat. Just for a year.
And these years were
finite – I could look forward to the end of them – the drinking
session that would bring the booze ban to an end. The dessert in a
restaurant that signalled the end of the sugar famine and the leg of
lamb that brought the meat free year to a full stop.
They were
experiments with myself. Personal, and did nothing only give me
something to start a conversation with – write a Facebook update or
blog about. They changed nothing in the world only something in me.
Yet, during all of
those years, I began to see something of the system. I began to see
the resources used – billions of pounds; physical space and lives
devoted to promoting those three products.
And then it
happened. About five ears ago, I realised I could no longer justify
something dying – its life prematurely ended – its only time
conscious brought to a bloody, often painful, stressful –
frightened – end for my palette. I saw the joy animals had in life
– the same joy children and adult humans had. The love they had
for their herd, family or children. And I couldn't eat them.
The thing is – I
loved meat – the texture, taste and the amazing recipes you could
create using different cuts and animals.
But I really
couldn't justify in any way, eating them. And the evidence I saw all
around me showed eating them wasn't that good for me either.
I saw row after row
of shelves in supermarkets of tinned, packaged, dried, marinated dead
bodies. All of these things, made to look distant from the reality
of where they came from – sentient beings – clever,
communicative, loving beings. Corporations wrapping up death,
ecological disaster, murder as cultural and “cruelty free.” And
we tell ourselves – we repeat their mantra -of “if it had a free,
happy life, its ok to eat it.”
Anyway – I'm not
writing this to persuade you to stop eating meat.
Alcohol and sugar –
two other products that are pushed by corporations – products that
are literally everywhere. Sugar in almost every processed piece of
food. Alcohol on screens, on billboards and dressed up with cultural
references to suit all. And it is an incapacitator and a killer. And
Ive seen it incapacitate and kill – and see that continuously. And
I loved it. I loved the image of it – and I loved the effect of it
– and I loved the cultural links – drinking mojitos in Cuba;
Whiskey/Whisky in the Celtic colonies; real ale from casks and real
lager in Pilsner. And getting wrecked on hot afternoons, at gigs, or
because the love of my life at that point and I were not getting on.
I remember
discovering the craic, the beer with friends and thinking as a 17
year old “society has conspired to keep this great thing away from
me.”
And the wine on a
Friday; the beers on a Saturday; the BBQ, the wedding, the Christmas
Glühwein…
The truth is, I
didn't want to be manipulated by the Bernays of the alcohol business
any longer. I didn't want to be doped; hungover, subdued any longer.
I realised society had conspired to insert me into the culture of
buying alcohol (and meat and sugar).
I’m meat, alcohol
and mostly sugar free. I avoid them all. Further – I’m vegan as
much as I can be – that is in my everyday life – but have been
known to eat an After Eight or two if someone has bought them for me
at Christmas. They are made by Nestle, by the way.
And the other night,
we went for a meal in an Indian restaurant and by mistake the barman
gave me a lager with alcohol – instead of the alcohol free version.
Its lucky I am not an alcoholic. I was more than halfway down the
pint before I realised – but when I did I finished it. The first
alcohol in five years. It didn’t tempt me to go back on it.
I miss none of these
things now. I crave none of them. I don't feel holier than thou –
I’m guilty of many things in life I see others avoiding – but I
feel better. I'm not better than anyone for giving these things up –
just a slightly happier me. Healthier. Happier – less guilty and
less part of the huge corporate machinery that processes us daily.
Our shopping bills are much less without meat and wine (though not
everyone in the house is meat or sugar free).
And I don't feel I
made up – or took someone else’s - principles – I wasn't
influenced by a pop idol or someone who guilted me into giving up
things I enjoyed. No – I came to my own logical decisions based on
he effects on the world and on me these products have. I wanted to
have less of a “footprint” on the world – and a lot less dead
animals and people on my conscience, I wanted to be healthier and I
wanted to be manipulated, pulled, twisted ground up and spat out a
lot less than I had been.
And standing on the
outside of those huge, three corporative interests – untouchable by
their promotions and spokes people and product placements and
invidious poisoning of my food; I can see the full horror and how
culture and lives are claimed by these monolithic manipulators who
care not a fiddlers fuck about your well being – or the workers
they exploit – or the animals they rare cheaply and slaughter.
Respect,interesting read.
ReplyDeleteThanks Annie :)
ReplyDelete