Sometimes I feel like a cheat. A fake. A charlatan.
Now, I do not mean this in a bad way. Please do not take me wrong.
What I mean to say is that I am a zealous idea thief. I steal everything. Damn near everything I spit out that is even remotely intelligent is stolen. I hear someone talk. I pick something up in a conversation. I read something. Maybe a book. Or the news. I steal it. I regurgitate it. Or I add to it. Or I alter it to fit my philosophy. I steal it.
Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident
I am pretty sure that this is normal. No ideas are really new. Every bit of knowledge in the human cannon is built upon the one that came before it. I rarely hear it discussed at any rate. Perhaps it is not so normal.
I was having a conversation with a friend at work. He is interested in raw food diets. We touched up diet, religion, Gandhi, Tolstoy.
If you are interested in diet you should read some Gandhi. I've read his autobiography. But I'm sure you can find some essays on his diet. Diet was an integral part of Gandhi's life both spiritual and material. He was a vegetarian. He was constantly torn over whether or not to give up dairy. He lived for many years on a diet of only fruit and raw nuts. He fasted often. His autobiography is a really great place to start. He wrote the novel in English. It was like his 12th language. So, while it is not superb in prose, it is not lacking either. It more than makes up for any deficiency's in writing style in content. He labeled the book 'The Story of My Experiments in Truth'. He didn't write the book about his public life or his political conquests. Rather, he focused his attention to his 'experiments in truth'. For Gandhi, 'truth' and 'god' were one and the same Many of his experiments involved his diet. Some involved the political realm. He fasted he prayed. In search of truth....
Leo Tolstoy, who wrote both War and Peace and Anna Karenia, was one of the more influential thinkers in Gandhi's life. Tolstoy, during the last 10-15 years of his life became a devout and, in many ways, radical Christian. Through the whole body of Christ's works the Sermon on the Mount is the most clear and direct message to mankind. Every man woman and child knows what is said in the Sermon and knows it to be correct. True. Yet everyone, or almost everyone, stands in direct opposition to this teaching. Good boys and young men, raised in churches and on the bible since day one, join armies. It is reasoned out. It is ignored. It is not thought to be applicable. It is not thought realistic to follow Christ's teaching to such an extreme. It is not realistic to follow Christ's teaching. Every nation in the world has a standing army. Good Christian Nations. The majority of people support this. The majority of churches support this. Citizens pay taxes that they know supports wars and young boys killing and being killed. It is legal for the state to murder citizens that broken laws. Leaders, good Christian leaders, advocate hunting down and killing enemies.
And let us not forget this one...
Sure hell is real. If you are going to believe in heaven you have to believe in hell. Without hell heaven has no meaning. I don't know that the majority of religions hold up without an idea of hell. And I am not talking about this silly nonsense about pitchforks and flames and such nonsense.
I recently heard a description of hell as a terror to all of the senses. You are crammed in dark pit, body of body with no room to move or even breathe. Everything smells rotten and terrible. A thousand times worse than the worst smell on earth. There is feces and things even more terrible in your mouth. Your entire body is engulfed in flames 10,000 hotter than any flames on earth. Yet your skin does not burn away. It stays there. Forever. Eternity is a long time. Imagine a mountain. Biggest mountain you can think of. Now imagine that mountain made out of sand. Imagine that it is a birds task to carry away that mountain in his beak one grain at a time. Now imagine that he can only take one grain every one hundred years. The time that it took the bird to complete this task would not even be a fraction of eternity. And that is how long you will be in hell for.
Hell does not need all that trickery. Hell does not need such grandiose stories and imagery. As a Christian, as any follower of a good and loving god, the most terrible thing imaginable is not this terror of the senses. The complete absence of god from your personage for all eternity is a fate infinitely worse than burning or tasting feces. That is hell.
I've been meaning to steal this one for a while. From Gandhi's Autobiography:
My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth. And if every page of the chapters does not proclaim to the reader that the only means for the realization of truth is Ahimsa, I shall deem all my labour in writing these chapters to have been in vain. And, even though my efforts in this behalf may prove fruitless, let the readers know that the vehicle, not the great principle is at fault. After all, however sincere my strivings after Ahimsa may have been, they have still be imperfect and inadequate. The little fleeting glimpses, therefore, that I have been able to have of Truth can hardly conve an idea of the indescribable lustre of Truth, a million times more intense that of the sun we daily see with our eyes. In fact what I have caught is only the faintest glimmer of that mighty effulgence. But this much I can say with assurance, as a result of all my experiments, that a perfect vision of Truth can only follow a complete realization of Ahimsa.
To see the universal and all-pervading spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creations as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means...
But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to a zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.
In bidding farewell to the reader, for the time being at any rate, I ask him to join with me in prayer to the God of Truth that He may grant me the boon of Ahimsa in the mind, word and deed.
About Me
- Joe
- When I was just a little young boy Papa said "Son, you'll never get far I'll tell you the reason, if you want to know 'Cause child of mine, there isn't really very far to go"
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
when i paint...
We had Morningstar Veggie Dogs on toasted fancy white bread with Organic Ketchup and Organic Annie's Macaroni and Cheese for dinner tonight.
It was the most processed meal we have eaten in months.
To tell the truth I thought Lauren was kidding when she told me that's what we'd be having for dinner.
Lauren has been our chef. Lauren has been our domestic queen. Lauren has been our housewife.
What I mean to say is that Lauren has been in charge of what the two of us eat for many many months now. She meticulously plans out our weekly meals. Hot dogs and macaroni and cheese are definitely never on the menu. Even if they are veggie dogs and organic Annies served with organic ketchup.
When I first meet Lauren, and I will always remember this, one of her favorite meals was rare cooked filet mignon, wrapped in bacon, and dipped in butter. Our culinary habits were miles apart. I remember our first date we opted for sushi. We talked alot, or I talked alot, about how I was not really a vegetarian. I just didn't eat meat. Girls were vegetarians. I did not care for all the fuss.
Today we have had a near reversal of roles. No, I am not eat the tender parts of a cow, wrapped in strips of a pigs back, dipped in bovine milk fats. But I do eat fish on occasion. Mostly sushi. And I don't like the 'vegetarian' label. Even more so than when we first started dating. I try to avoid it all costs.
Lauren, on the other hand, is a full fledged veggie. She's in the army. She has the weapons, the propaganda and armor.
Lauren has read a multitude of books of late on food, farming and all the related issues that go along. She has read books on local and organic foods. She has read your 'Omnivore's Dilemma and 'In Defense of Food' that dominate the New York Times best seller list. She has read books on the history of cultivation of every edible plant and animal you can think of. She has read books on farmers markets. She has read books on corn. You would not believe how much crap there is to know about corn. She has read books on animal liberation and animal cruelty in the meat industry.
She has read it all. And somewhere along the line she decided to give up meat altogether.
Growing up along side of this whole new thought process for Lauren was a new passion that she has been able to throw all of her efforts into. That passion is dinner. Lauren does not merely cook the majority of our dinners. She does much much more than that. She spends weekday evenings with her cookbooks (thank you Mark Bittman) notepads and pens planning out various meals. She generates grocery shopping lists. She keeps our household budget in mind.
Her main goal, or at least her main theme as I am not truly qualified to speak on her behalf as far as a 'main goal' is concerned, is to provide the two of us with a delicious home cooked meal that is fresh and as free from anything processed as possible.
Some common dinners of ours include:
*Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Casserole (we always use dried beans; never canned)
*vegetable pancakes on top of a bed of mixed greens with veggies, roasted red peppers (homemade) and hard boiled eggs.
*Homemade Potato and Cheese Perogies (all from scratch) served with onion slow cooked in butter.
*Deep fried tofu battered and baked in a traditional buffalo sauce with beets slow cooked over 8 hours in an apple cider vinegar and sugar mixture serve with a sour cream and horse radish sauce and some braised carrots.
*A wide variety of homemade veggie burgers served with homemade french fries, sweet potato fries or chickpea fries (made from chick pea flour). These homemade veggie burgers contain various beans (again, always dried not canned) nuts, veggies and greens. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'veggie burger'.
*Beans slow cooked with potatos in a mixture of vegetable stock, butter and seasonings.
*Homemade seitan with cauliflower and pureed lima beans with cream and seasonings.
There is so much more. She makes vegetable stock and tomato sauces from scratch. She has made pastas from scratch. We have had lasagna from scratch (she does want a pasta maker terribly). We have a homemade soup with homemade bread or biscuits once a week. We have homemade chili and cornbread.
So on and so forth.
She even makes enough dinner every night so that we can eat our leftovers for lunch. We are always price conscious. We do not make much money and hope to buy a house one day.
She also does all of our shopping. She leaves week a good 4 hours before me on Friday. This is plenty of time to get the majority of our shopping done. She tries to buy as much local and organic food as possible. She hits up three main grocery stores. We have our big grocer, Fred Meyer. Think 'Price Chopper'. This place is a last resort. She often gets flour, oil, etc from there. Then she hits up Trader Joe's. She gets what she can from there. Finally, she hits up a local vegetable and wholesale shop that specializes in local and organic foods. They deal vegetables on the cheap. I'm not really sure how. On occasion they need to be eaten within the next few days. Avocados go for as cheap as 3 for $1 there.
We get raw milk. We get local organic eggs from small farms with happy little chickens. We get local veggies whenever possible. We go to at least one Farmers Market a week (there is one Saturday downtown and one Sunday just 6 blocks from our house) to pick up a few veggies, some berries (Oregon is well known for their delicious berries) and some homemade breads.
She does all of this and spends approximately $50-$60 a week on food. For two people. We eat local organic delicious food every day. And we rarely, if ever, eat out. That is extremely impressive. I readily admit that I have no idea how she does it.
Things have changed since we got out here. That is for sure. I benefit. I really benefit. I benefit immensely. And I do appreciate. And I let that be known. But I am not the only one that benefits. Lauren benefits too. From this passion. From this calling. Perhaps even more than i do.
And that is truth.
It was the most processed meal we have eaten in months.
To tell the truth I thought Lauren was kidding when she told me that's what we'd be having for dinner.
Lauren has been our chef. Lauren has been our domestic queen. Lauren has been our housewife.
What I mean to say is that Lauren has been in charge of what the two of us eat for many many months now. She meticulously plans out our weekly meals. Hot dogs and macaroni and cheese are definitely never on the menu. Even if they are veggie dogs and organic Annies served with organic ketchup.
When I first meet Lauren, and I will always remember this, one of her favorite meals was rare cooked filet mignon, wrapped in bacon, and dipped in butter. Our culinary habits were miles apart. I remember our first date we opted for sushi. We talked alot, or I talked alot, about how I was not really a vegetarian. I just didn't eat meat. Girls were vegetarians. I did not care for all the fuss.
Today we have had a near reversal of roles. No, I am not eat the tender parts of a cow, wrapped in strips of a pigs back, dipped in bovine milk fats. But I do eat fish on occasion. Mostly sushi. And I don't like the 'vegetarian' label. Even more so than when we first started dating. I try to avoid it all costs.
Lauren, on the other hand, is a full fledged veggie. She's in the army. She has the weapons, the propaganda and armor.
Lauren has read a multitude of books of late on food, farming and all the related issues that go along. She has read books on local and organic foods. She has read your 'Omnivore's Dilemma and 'In Defense of Food' that dominate the New York Times best seller list. She has read books on the history of cultivation of every edible plant and animal you can think of. She has read books on farmers markets. She has read books on corn. You would not believe how much crap there is to know about corn. She has read books on animal liberation and animal cruelty in the meat industry.
She has read it all. And somewhere along the line she decided to give up meat altogether.
Growing up along side of this whole new thought process for Lauren was a new passion that she has been able to throw all of her efforts into. That passion is dinner. Lauren does not merely cook the majority of our dinners. She does much much more than that. She spends weekday evenings with her cookbooks (thank you Mark Bittman) notepads and pens planning out various meals. She generates grocery shopping lists. She keeps our household budget in mind.
Her main goal, or at least her main theme as I am not truly qualified to speak on her behalf as far as a 'main goal' is concerned, is to provide the two of us with a delicious home cooked meal that is fresh and as free from anything processed as possible.
Some common dinners of ours include:
*Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Casserole (we always use dried beans; never canned)
*vegetable pancakes on top of a bed of mixed greens with veggies, roasted red peppers (homemade) and hard boiled eggs.
*Homemade Potato and Cheese Perogies (all from scratch) served with onion slow cooked in butter.
*Deep fried tofu battered and baked in a traditional buffalo sauce with beets slow cooked over 8 hours in an apple cider vinegar and sugar mixture serve with a sour cream and horse radish sauce and some braised carrots.
*A wide variety of homemade veggie burgers served with homemade french fries, sweet potato fries or chickpea fries (made from chick pea flour). These homemade veggie burgers contain various beans (again, always dried not canned) nuts, veggies and greens. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'veggie burger'.
*Beans slow cooked with potatos in a mixture of vegetable stock, butter and seasonings.
*Homemade seitan with cauliflower and pureed lima beans with cream and seasonings.
There is so much more. She makes vegetable stock and tomato sauces from scratch. She has made pastas from scratch. We have had lasagna from scratch (she does want a pasta maker terribly). We have a homemade soup with homemade bread or biscuits once a week. We have homemade chili and cornbread.
So on and so forth.
She even makes enough dinner every night so that we can eat our leftovers for lunch. We are always price conscious. We do not make much money and hope to buy a house one day.
She also does all of our shopping. She leaves week a good 4 hours before me on Friday. This is plenty of time to get the majority of our shopping done. She tries to buy as much local and organic food as possible. She hits up three main grocery stores. We have our big grocer, Fred Meyer. Think 'Price Chopper'. This place is a last resort. She often gets flour, oil, etc from there. Then she hits up Trader Joe's. She gets what she can from there. Finally, she hits up a local vegetable and wholesale shop that specializes in local and organic foods. They deal vegetables on the cheap. I'm not really sure how. On occasion they need to be eaten within the next few days. Avocados go for as cheap as 3 for $1 there.
We get raw milk. We get local organic eggs from small farms with happy little chickens. We get local veggies whenever possible. We go to at least one Farmers Market a week (there is one Saturday downtown and one Sunday just 6 blocks from our house) to pick up a few veggies, some berries (Oregon is well known for their delicious berries) and some homemade breads.
She does all of this and spends approximately $50-$60 a week on food. For two people. We eat local organic delicious food every day. And we rarely, if ever, eat out. That is extremely impressive. I readily admit that I have no idea how she does it.
Things have changed since we got out here. That is for sure. I benefit. I really benefit. I benefit immensely. And I do appreciate. And I let that be known. But I am not the only one that benefits. Lauren benefits too. From this passion. From this calling. Perhaps even more than i do.
And that is truth.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
War of the Roses
This past week was the Rose Festival. This is a big week long Festival that happens throughout the city to sort of "kick off the summer".
Some highlights include a fireworks display over the water, a nighttime parade through downtown, a more traditional parade through downtown during the day, a big carnival with rides, animals and everything else you would expect in a carnival and a few fleets of sailors.
The whole Rose Festival thing was nice. The whole city gets into. It's the 'water cooler' talk, if you will.
But Fleet Week got me thinking.
There is no shortage of females out here that were out of their gourds excited about the prospect of seeing men in military uniforms. But one really has to wonder why this is. Is there something inherent about the outfit itself? Are men attracted to the profession inherently more attractive?
Is it just a novelty?
Assuming that the sentiment is genuine, and I believe that it is, I really have only one conclusion that I can draw.
I believe that this obsession with a man in a uniform is on par or equal to men being obsessed with Halo, ultimate fighting, first person shooter games. So on and so forth.
That is to say that it is the fetishization of violence.
That uniform represents something. Something very clear and very distinct. The uniform, at its heart, represents violence. Anything else that it is purported to represent is simply an added value judgement. The idea that the U.S. military is somehow inherently 'good' or 'just' or what have you is no more than subjective musing.
People know this. Even if they are not actively conscious of this everyone must know it at their core.
The attraction of the uniform is an attraction to violence. That uniform represents in the hearts and minds of every man, woman and child the potential to unleash violence upon you or someone else in your name.
Not much else.
In other news, I don't really care for first person shooter games anymore. I wouldn't mind a Wii. But we don't have that kind of money. And won't for sometime.
Some highlights include a fireworks display over the water, a nighttime parade through downtown, a more traditional parade through downtown during the day, a big carnival with rides, animals and everything else you would expect in a carnival and a few fleets of sailors.
The whole Rose Festival thing was nice. The whole city gets into. It's the 'water cooler' talk, if you will.
But Fleet Week got me thinking.
There is no shortage of females out here that were out of their gourds excited about the prospect of seeing men in military uniforms. But one really has to wonder why this is. Is there something inherent about the outfit itself? Are men attracted to the profession inherently more attractive?
Is it just a novelty?
Assuming that the sentiment is genuine, and I believe that it is, I really have only one conclusion that I can draw.
I believe that this obsession with a man in a uniform is on par or equal to men being obsessed with Halo, ultimate fighting, first person shooter games. So on and so forth.
That is to say that it is the fetishization of violence.
That uniform represents something. Something very clear and very distinct. The uniform, at its heart, represents violence. Anything else that it is purported to represent is simply an added value judgement. The idea that the U.S. military is somehow inherently 'good' or 'just' or what have you is no more than subjective musing.
People know this. Even if they are not actively conscious of this everyone must know it at their core.
The attraction of the uniform is an attraction to violence. That uniform represents in the hearts and minds of every man, woman and child the potential to unleash violence upon you or someone else in your name.
Not much else.
In other news, I don't really care for first person shooter games anymore. I wouldn't mind a Wii. But we don't have that kind of money. And won't for sometime.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
A little recap...
I started out with this thing hoping to update at least twice a week. I have not been too successful with that so far.
There has been much since I wrote in here last. I do not really have time to go into detail like I would like.
But maybe I can go back.
I put in a good 70 hours leading up to Memorial Day weekend. We went up to Seattle that weekend and had a wonderful and relaxing weekend. I did not work. We had some cookouts. We saw a Red Sox game.
It was great.
Back to work the following week.
Then my buddy Dave came out here this weekend. We saw a great fireworks display friday night as part of the city's Rose Festival. We went out to a bar after that and I learned that I am too old to think about taking shots.
Next day Lauren made us a delicious dinner of homemade perogies, slow cooked braised beets with sour cream and horseradish and a fried cabbage and carrot dish.
Lauren made homemade chili in the slow cooker, we saw Multnomah Falls, played monopoly.
It was really nice to spend some time with one of my friends.
And now i have to get back to work.
And beyond.
There has been much since I wrote in here last. I do not really have time to go into detail like I would like.
But maybe I can go back.
I put in a good 70 hours leading up to Memorial Day weekend. We went up to Seattle that weekend and had a wonderful and relaxing weekend. I did not work. We had some cookouts. We saw a Red Sox game.
It was great.
Back to work the following week.
Then my buddy Dave came out here this weekend. We saw a great fireworks display friday night as part of the city's Rose Festival. We went out to a bar after that and I learned that I am too old to think about taking shots.
Next day Lauren made us a delicious dinner of homemade perogies, slow cooked braised beets with sour cream and horseradish and a fried cabbage and carrot dish.
Lauren made homemade chili in the slow cooker, we saw Multnomah Falls, played monopoly.
It was really nice to spend some time with one of my friends.
And now i have to get back to work.
And beyond.
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