I didn't expect to write today. I wasn't reflecting on anything in particular but I'm hurting for some reason. So much so that I have to resist the urge to cry.
Go figure, I guess. It's been a pretty shitty & overstimulating day. I underslept and had to wake early in the morning and while I took a nap I didn't feel any better.
I've thought about my internal confusion on some things. I also watched a video about interstellar space - it's been a while since I engaged with scientific material about the nature and the cosmos, absent of any philosophy or spiritual interpretation. I learned about the layers of solar bubbles we live in, their shapes, and the highlights of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. I miss enjoying the neutrality of scientific discovery, though I do notice how my feelings towards certain things are coloured by belief still. Particularly what the Gnostics said about the many layers/cells the earthbound souls are trapped in, keeping us separate from the True God and Home. That the Messenger, the Christ, had to penetrate these layers at a great danger. And I listen to the story of how the Voyager probes are going through the journey away from our solar system, to the edge, where interstellar space begins. In two years or so we will lose all contact with Voyager 1 as its exhausted communications system corresponds to its departure from the outer bubble (I forget the term for it, I think it's helio-something but not heliosphere). Voyager 1 is almost like a representative of what Gnostics imagine happens when the soul is attempting to leave the Demiurgic solar prison. Passing through the planetary rings, each presided by a warden. Then the cosmic bubbles that no spaceship that we know of or can build could pass through due to the radiation, particle density, and a number of other perils no mortal or machine can withstand. Though it's expected Voyager 1 will pass through and out into deep space, carrying the copper disc record of earth life for potential ETs to discover, it will be out of our hands to know what it might see.
Talking about it has calmed me a little.

I have noticed my hair has been falling out lately, and I have rashes in places on my skin, so I purchased a multivitamin.
I have been wondering about my confusion. And my hypocrisy, and forced empathy, and how they all connect.
When I returned from the US I was determined to go vegan. I've been vegetarian for seven years and always choose vegan food options when I can (though it also extends to cruelty-free brands and clothes). But there are some harsh truths I think I need to accept, especially if I am to be authentic, based on my recent posts, based on my personal growth project to reduce inner confusion and to live my truth.
While I was in the US I had to eat meat. I was in a position where I simply could not avoid it, though whenever I could, I kept my portions small and supplemented my diet with friendly gut bacteria and enzymes etc. To help break down the food because my body was unaccustomed to it. I was really sick the first two weeks. After that, I had frequent migraines and my energy level was definitely as low as I remember it being back when I was an omnivore. People will tell you that it's the vegetarian/vegan diets that make you week, but for all the years I've eaten meat I always felt sluggish. It takes the body a lot of energy to break down food our bodies were not designed to eat.
But anyway, my grandmother who sees me only every few years remarked on hos thin my hair has become. It was always so thick and healthy, she's not wrong but I hadn't noticed it over the years. She thinks it's due to the absence of meat in my diet. Maybe she's right, I don't know.
To not dance around the subject, I can't go vegan. I probably won't for another few years at least. I already struggle to feed myself properly and generally have a poor relationship with food, that is, I don't care for it. There's unpredictable exceptions sometimes - like the rustic salad snack my mother treated me to, that was divine and ridiculously simple to make. I don't think about food, ever. 8/10 I eat because I have to, because I need to as I excercise and need fuel for strength and cardio. If I don't fuel, I risk passing out and it's a terrible feeling to experience.
But more to the point. I know about animal agriculture enough that being vegetarian doesn't change anything. The cows whose teats are sucked by machines to make milk, butter and cheese are all led to slaughter once they no longer have the energy to even walk. Usually this is within five years of birth, they're still young but their bodies are sucked dry out of all meaning, all dignity and compassion. They're things, products. They're slaughtered when they're dying and sick and the meat is turned into cheap burgers. The hens that lay eggs are as miserable as the ones bred for their meat. And even if I don't buy milk or cheese with my own money (I tell myself I don't want to fund this industry) I eat it in trace amounts (in some sauces, condiments, whey powder which is everywhere, milk chocolate). I falsely believed myself principled. Not a hypocrite because I'm "getting there" and my intenstions are "good". But being a vegetarian IS hypocrisy. Veganism is the only way. But even then, the plants sourced by vegan products still kill animals and their habitats. A friend of mine told me something about almonds, at least in the US, which is mostly grown in California. and the anount of resources it takes to grow so many of them.
You can't win. Not unless population is reduced, which I've mentioned before. There is so many of us and in our current economic model there is no way to be truly ethical except to literally grow your own food, which I have exactly zero interest or patience to do. I really don't care for plants and growing and nurturing anything living (except relationships and skills I want to improve).
I live around the corner from an ecology center and organic farm. I buy their seasonal produce sometimes. They have cows, that I sometimes hear mooing for food. I remember talking to them about what happens to the cows. When they're ready for slaughter, the cows are brought into a truck that then takes them somewhere offsite to be killed. They then sell the meat. They raise them but are not the ones to blast their brains with a gun (which is the "humane" method of killing cows codified in the EU laws.) My grandmother used to have a dairy cow of her own, and I remember the calf I used to play with as a girl. The baby's big, glistening snoot. Gorgeous innocent eyes and soft ears curiously turned in my direction. They are such gentle, pure creatures. Truly, only animals are innocent in this world. It makes me want to cry, how we debase and objectify them. Sacrifice them in a daily blood ritual to worship our ego. There is no animal I want to eat. Animal-derived produce is not food to me. But the more I comb through the knots of my core values and feelings, the more intolerant I become about grey areas. The halfways. The seas are parting. While many things are permitted nuance and openness, the third or middle way that used to admire me as it was taught by Zen Buddhism - to avoid abstinence and excess in all matters - hasn't made me happier or more harmonious or a better person. Why should I follow the teaching of a philosophy that demonises desire and attachment as the root of all suffering? It sounded so wise but I never actually understood why desire is a negative when I think it gives life purpose and that experiences such as jealousy, pride, greed, addiction etc. are not bad on their own, especially since in the pain they cause they increase the value of pleasure. But who am I to contest masters who have denounced the world and meditated on this for centuries?
There is not an animal I want to eat, but if the purity veganism is too difficult to attain, then I'd rather occasionally meat/fish to avoid long-term health deficiencies, plus vegan alternatives ARE more expensive (which is entirely due to government subsidies on meat/fish... if govt didn't do that, only the rich could afford meat and it would be more scarce, just like in days before factory farming). Rather that than lie to myself that I'm making the world a better place while I enjoy the seasoned cheese my mother chopped into the salad. The fuck.

I think it's small things like this that make me so deeply conflicted inside. I want so much to be a "good" person, to practice what I preach, to live from the heart, to ultimately make the world a little better despite the parasite that I am by just existing in this system of hellish exploitation of earth's resources. But it's not possible. I don't make a difference. At least, not enough to matter. Even if my intentions are good, they're not good enough. Never have, never will be.
The only way I can be a good person is by being kind when I can be. It sounds simple but by that I mean... being understanding, gentle, patient, generous. Making the moments count. To accept that sometimes that's not enough. I can't alleviate the suffering in the world, as much as I'd love to believe my actions matter. I can only hope to relieve a little loneliness or stress or unhappiness on a small scale, the people I come into contact with. I'm a fucking bleeding heart. I hate humans so much, collectively and individually, but I don't WANT to feel this way. I force myself to see their redeeming qualities as much as is possible because if I can't relieve suffering I at least don't want to increase it. Gentleness is such a divine quality and so rare too, because it requires grace and patience. I've always wanted to be gentle because that's what I love to see in other people. But I fear that trait is unnatural in me. I crave it yet when I try to embody it, it doesn't feel genuine, and I think I confuse it with respect which is my default setting. I respect everyone, even when I don't, I keep my criticism to an absolute minimum. I suppose gentleness is a form of respect. But it's infused with feeling. And the awareness that if you're not gentle, you might injure the being you claim to care about.

To conclude. While I cannot bring myself to buy anything with meat & seafood, I may become an opportunist as it suits me, and eat if offered. It makes no difference. It literally makes no difference from the way I've lived until now as a vegetarian. The dairy cows were still objectified and tortured and killed for beef. The chicken - if not turned into processed meat - most likely was crushed and suffocated by other chickens in those filthy plastic crates men throw them into when delivering to a slaughterhouse/meat plant. Miserable raped mass-bred innocent creatures. I know what I'm putting in my body. I am fully aware and complicit and there is no escape for them or for me because I am a cog in the machine. I want to change but my priorities are directed in more "immediate" concerns. Because I'm lazy and it's not convenient enough to sustain. Because my budget is tight. Because I cannot and will not garden. I will someday. I know this is not how I want to live. But real self-sufficiency is quite a distant prospect. I'm in fucking hell. I don't want to be but if I didn't try to adapt, I will end up killing myself from the inability to ever feel morally/ethically clean. The only purity possible is unfiltered emotion, especially internal. Hate can be pure. Anger can be pure. Love can be pure. Lust can be pure.

When I was young, my biggest fear of all time was self-deception. Someone once told me that abstract fears like this have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies, and I know a few examples from people in my life (notable mention is my uncle who used to talk about his fears of being brainwashed then he joined a cult and became so religious even the fundamentalists don't relate to him)
I think my eyes are finally opening. I already had one eye open - the third eye - since the summer of 2019. But I could never imagine how deep my self-deception actually goes. It makes me sick, actually. It's like a web that covers everything in my psyche, catching impulses and feelings and desires like writhing flies. The world didn't deceive me, neither did any one person, no one I ever believed in enough to have that kind of influence over me. I deceived myself. Through my fear and anxiety, I invited this devil in.
And the time has come for an exorcism.