Hunters and Gatherers (or, My Philosophical Struggle with Vegetarianism and My Experience Viewing Earthlings)

Christina, she of the lovely Owl Cave tattoo, has given me permission to post my email to her--and part of her response--regarding my experience viewing the documentary, Earthlings. Here you go:
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Christina,

I've had a really interesting and powerful couple of days. I feel a sense of raw peace. I'm not sure what I mean by that, but it feels good. I think it's a sense of collectedness inside myself that is tinged with being able to look certain pieces of darkness in the face.

Last night, I took Ollie for a really long walk out in the sunshine. I listened to my headphones, and I was awash in all these great sensory stimulations. I power-walked, and I worked up a sweat, my heartbeat. Upon getting home (Mom hadn't returned from the new house yet), I thought, okay, time for some Nathan Time. I was initially going to watch some of the extras from Twin Peaks' second season, but then--with the house so silent--I decided to put in Earthlings. About ten minutes into it, Mom got home and joined me.

I was filled with this gut-wrenching sick feeling while viewing the documentary. It just got into my brain and heart (and stomach), and I cried & flinched & felt ashamed & felt nauseous & felt thankful I was watching it. Mom and I had ordered a pizza, and I couldn't eat the (cheese and pineapple) pizza without putting the film on pause....

....I only got a half hour through it last night. I said to Jan, "Okay, I'm convinced! I'm now a vegetarian! I don't need to see the rest to convince me any further." We then watched some Alias Season 5 and the new episode of Veronica Mars that aired last night. Upon waking today, right when I was going to start my ritualistic workout routine, I decided instead to just put on the coffee and watch the rest of Earthlings. I knew I had to watch it; I felt it in my blood. I owed it to myself. This is for many reasons: my new book deals a lot with animal cruelty; I wanted to see what else was said about how animals are treated in different capacities; I wanted to show myself I could follow through with something so gut-wrenching and stare at it, even if I flinched. I succeeded. I finished it.

I am now considering myself a vegetarian. I said to Ben and Jan, "I don't know if this says something good or bad about me that it 'only' took watching this film to sway me." It can be taken as a strong thing: once I saw this, bam, I'm ready to make some changes. On the other hand, maybe this whole process/experience has exposed some of my weaknesses: if it only took that first half hour for me to put a halt on my heart and stomach in so many ways, why couldn't I have stopped before? Why did I need to wait to see Earthlings and witness these atrocities to make a change when I knew--before viewing--that I could be convinced to make positive changes for myself? Maybe the reasons don't matter in the end. And, if I'm to "go there," there is always a chance (maybe a big one) that as time goes on and some of the film's images and effects settle into my subconscious, I will decide to give meat another shot. Who knows. I certainly don't think it's a black-and-white situation. We come from a carnivorous evolutionary background. Our DNA wants, in many ways, to have meat be a part of our diet. However, "evolutionary" is the key word because our bodies have changed; our world's biological development has changed; we are far, far, far from treating animals the way we should and thus are committing crimes, in essence, crimes that often occur behind closed doors. Not many people want to open these doors. They purposefully don't ask for the keys. Blissful ignorance.

Can I ever become vegan? At this point, that seems unlikely. A part of me thinks that hey, if I'm going to stop eating meat I should stop any "food habits" that contribute to animal cruelty. But I also know that life and personal evolution are about baby steps, stage one to stage two to stage three, and maybe stage one is where I will stay, who knows. And right now, today, I'm wearing my leather shoes that I've had for about ten years. I don't anticipate stopping wearing them anytime soon.

In the end, I know that I'm going to give vegetarianism a shot. I've always wanted to, and I've often felt this heart-tug telling me to do so. It comes from a health standpoint and a moral standpoint. Again, both these standpoints exist inside a murky gray area. And I think you're a good inspiration & role model for how to incorporate new practices into my rituals and habits: I certainly don't want to start preaching to people. I've always hated when people have done that to me--there are many kinds of guilt & "religion"--and it would make me the biggest of hypocrites. So I think I will take a nice Christina Bondurant approach, and silently work on my own spirituality, and offer my own little nuggets about Nathan Choices when they come up naturally in the contexts of conversations.

We'll see what happens.

Much love to you. Thank you for listening.

Hugs,
Nathan
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Most of Christina's response, the parts that are applicable to the above:

Oh, Nathan! Thank you for this email. And thank you, thank you, thank you for the voice mail you left late last week, which I have saved and listened to several times when I needed some love.

There are so many things I could say in response to your email. It's hard to figure these things out! We each must do it for ourselves. Please know that I support you and for me the hardest thing is that the way our mainstream society works is not very supportive when I'm trying to make healthy changes in my life... whatever they are.

So if you go forward on the path of vegetarianism, remember you have good friends to turn to when you need support or just to be with someone else who has seen some of what you have seen. I think it is easy to put the hard things aside in our world, we are taught to do that all the time! And I get that. But, for me, once I have knowledge and the truth about something I have to try and maintain an awareness and change my habits around it, as much as I can... it feels like a duty to me. As a human being I have all this power, I might as well try to use it for good. Like Spiderman! How geeky.

Lastly, you are the ONLY loved one I have who was not already veggie or vegan willing to watch this film... it is a courageous thing to open yourself to a film like that and, on behalf of the animals and our world, I thank you from the bottom of my heart!!! Seriously.

LOVE YOU!
Christina

p.s. I am wearing some leather shoes my mom bought me a few years ago right now! Everyone does it differently, my expectation for myself is that I do the best I possibly can :)