as unnatural as vegetarian

Many years ago I became annoyed at the author of several articles of opinion in our local rag.....which isn't unusual for me. This person was labelling all hunters and consumers of meat "wildlife killers". So I wrote a response to her articles asking if she kept plants captive in her house or was aware of the studies done on plants being sympathetic to their grower's plight should the grower become ill......and some of these proved out even at great distances between person and plants. I deliberately used the word 'captive'.....for it is my opinion that plants may not necessarily wish to be 'kept' indoors. I also asked her if she had any real knowledge whereby the vegetarian diet she lauded came from and how it was grown. As well, I questioned her as to what the difference was in eating a plant.... which botanists had proven were capable of 'sympathy'.....from eating an animal.  She chose to ignore the former and merely reiterated her simple opinion of cruelty.

The opinion she chose to portray is more commonly referred to with phrases such as "too much Walt Disney fluff in her childhood" or some other similar comparison...... but I think it goes far deeper into areas of that 88% of unused portion of our brains which storehouse so much other untapped resource. I lean to the idea of something imbedded way down in human consciousness which recognizes a baseline connection to all existance in atomic mass or physical form. This is more of a subconscious innate idea which stirs something deep in our nature and causes an attempt by our rational mind to try and release us from the 'trap'....bear with me.....of the natural exchanges of life...... and by that.......I am saying that everything is....food or feeder.......of or on.......everything else.......at one time or another .......throughout the existence of this earth.  My usual comment is regarding the fact that everything dies sooner or later and will return to simple organic matter nourishing something else in the circular exchange of matter. This idea connects all matter at all levels of the interplay which exists between animate and inanimate and is the perfect expression of "natural acceptance" in my opinion......but it is not popular within arenas of naivete.

These thoughts have led me, over the years, to reconsider the causes of why civilizations are born, prosper, and die in all form.....but especially when it comes to human beings. I think all things have their place in time and space equations but this idea neither supports one aspect as positive or negative.......merely just the 'breath' of life. As I pondered and looked at the social traits of humans I began seeing a pattern to our behaviour as the source of  our constant dilemna. Trade and farming.

 At this point I'll interject something from the good ol' Bible again.....for your consideration.....about the 'forbidden fruit' from the tree of knowledge.

It seems that once bipeds begin grasping the idea of maintaining crops as insurance against starvation the next thing which transpires is the notion to trade these commodities back and forth between themselves for sources to expand our comfort. We call this human nature. If it is human nature then it stands to reason that we have some sort of deeper insight which almost seems to be a recognition of life's futility and thus we accept this "game" and play it out again and again throughout our history. We slowly make a transition from hunter-gatherers who follow the whims of nature by simple animistic beliefs to an industrialist idealism which creates a belief whereby we begin to think we can control our destinys through knowledge and its application......man-centered or anthropocentric.

 I think this is something to consider for those who see the current popularity of such things as 'transition town' thinking as a way of insuring survival in the years ahead...........as our short love affair with cheap energy implodes.