Vegetarianism

Back in my formative years I ate a lot of meat. Being a Cameron, I had an absurd appetite and would eat multiple burgers in one sitting - four fastfood burgers or two big homemade burgers. For a while there Mom had to keep a bread bag full of salami sandwiches with ketchup in the fridge for me, I got hungry so often. I never got fat, all the food just went vertical and I finally stopped at 5'10". Around that time I read Gandhi's autobiography, as well as a book called Diet for a New America by John Robbins, and along with a general inclination toward hippie-ness I started thinking about vegetarianism. I went veggie and felt better for it, more energy, and I was pretty passionate for a number of years.

When I was 21, I was dating this one fellow whose father is a large Moravian man with very traditional tastes. A decent man for sure, but he did his best to taunt me into consuming beer and pork at family dinners. I don't like beer (sorry, it's just never worked for me), and didn't eat pork. At this point I was feeling like I didn't have as much energy as I hoped and thought perhaps I needed a bit more protein. The turning point was in Prague when I had a cup of soup made with beef broth. It was fine, I suppose, but after that I couldn't claim vegetarianism as an excuse not to accept lovingly prepared meaty food. Since that point I ate meat on occasion - sometimes for peer pressure reasons and once in a while because I was in the mood.

But to be entirely truthful, I don't really like meat. My body doesn't crave it, and I do well without. I do love pepperoni, but that hardly counts, because that is all spices and grease and doesn't taste like meat. Even as a kid I'd drown my steak in ketchup to make it palatable, and mostly tried to like it because Dad liked it so much and I wanted to be cool like him. Clearly it comes more naturally to some than others.

So I'd been thinking about the question again. The clincher for me was something I read in a Vogue magazine, of all places, and it was a thought that my conscience couldn't shake. The thought was: we don't need to eat meat to live or even to thrive, which means that something dies just to suit our tastebuds. If it's a matter of life and death, like it has been in times past, I understand killing to live. Mother nature is cruel and creatures kill to live every day. But in this day and age, it is completely unnecessary for us humans. I think it's hypocritical not to be willing to face up to the reality of how things get to us for our consumption. If a cow were standing there and someone handed me a gun and said "you want a burger? Shoot the cow," I'd say "that's okay, I'll have a salad," and name the cow and take him home.

I accepted my feelings about all this, as a getting back to my roots sort of thing, and went vegetarian again. One of the benefits of saying "I'm a vegetarian" is that then people won't be offended when you say you decline their duck pate or plate of pork. Just "cutting back" on meat is harder than being vegetarian because of the social pressure.

Also - when I said that I didn't have as much energy as I wanted after years of vegetarianism - I didn't find that eating meat helped with that. What helped was eating well in general, cutting back on sugar and having more direction and focus in my life - feeling excited about what I was doing. Some energy is physical and some is mental, and I feel quite energized these days as a vegetarian.

Another thing is that the first time I went veggie, I got very negative responses to the declaration: bewildered stares, taunts about eating squirrel and assorted animals and "why would you do that?" as though I had lost my faculties.

Now I get "good for you" and "I should do that." Weird, huh?

DIY Entrepreneurial Movement

There is quite a movement going on for the small craft-based business-man, and more often -woman. This rocks. It's a powerful way to take charge of your own life and checking account, and to be awesome in spite of the dreadful things people are saying about finding a job, lousy economy, etc. It's not that I doubt that it's rough, but for me personally, I know that my success has more to do with how hard and smart I work day to day than how good the economy is. When the economy picks up it'll be easier, but businesses succeed or fail individually in good or bad times.

Ages ago a friend was telling me about his skydiving adventures, and the risks involved. He mentioned statistics and said "...if you believe in statistics." I've thought about that. As an overall governmental average thing, sure, I believe in statistics. But from my personal perspective the only statistics I believe in are my own day to day successes or failures. It only pisses me off when someone talks about the bad economy, as if that outranked my own work and determination. So there.

It's a whole movement going on, and the bookstores and internet are chock full of writing about making your own business go. Which leads me to my one of my Big Opinions about feminist female empowerment...

I've said for ages that women were natural multi-taskers. Historically for ages we have had to be to care for and clothe our own selves, children, men, and in general keep things together, while the dudes had a single mind: kill stuff and bring it back, or build stuff. Takes a different mindset. And that makes us good business owners, coordinators, managers, and good at the balancing act that nurturing work and home requires.

I think some feminism gets confused with women living lives just like stereotypical top-level men. And don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of women kicking ass and taking names. I just think the top priority should be each woman structuring her own life according to her own desires and being true to herself. If that means all business, or stay at home mom, that's cool. But being awesome shouldn't mean abandoning femininity. I like femininity, and I personally feel this intense nurturing, caring, ferocious, seductive, protective maternal side of me that is uniquely female and I think it's pretty neat.

There may still be glass ceilings and inequality, but we are still in a better position than we have been in recorded history, at least in this country. I feel seriously fortunate that I am able to say this is my life, and this is how I want it, dammit, and make it that way without asking anyone permission.

In my own life I've always had in the back of my head that I don't want to have to choose between having a family and a career. It's clearly a mistake to abandon all personal interests to care for a family (I've seen that, and it backfires like crazy when the kids are grown), but I don't want a daycare place to raise my kids either. So, my answer is to run my own show. I love running my own show. It takes time to get it stable and successful, but I know I'll be able to adapt it to the way of life that I choose as it and I both grow.

Book Learnin’ / The Boggle Box

I’ve been thinking about how to go about becoming a professional in a particular field. As a homeschooler (and once a homeschooler, always a homeschooler) I was raised with a rebellious feeling that if I want to learn something, I just learn it. It doesn’t take eight years of schooling to learn something. That bit of irreverence has served me very well, and I have learned a lot just because I wanted to know.

That said, I realized that I have a tendency to reinvent the wheel, spend too much time thinking about things trying to figure them out. That realization resulted in a library plunder and a heavy bag full of books on marketing, establishing a craft business, etc. There is quite a bit that I have already figured out through experience, trial and error and online research, but there is much to learn as well.

The book I’m working on right now is Craft, Inc. It has some great ideas and I have a long to-do list of things to improve in my own work.

This also applies to how much to study things alone and how much to do institutionally, i.e. go back to school. I’ve decided the answer is some of each. I have learned a lot in the art classes I’ve taken, and perhaps what’s more valuable than that is the fact that it can prod you forward and reshake the mind. It’s like those boggle boxes that you shake up to spell new words. I think the worst is the feeling of stagnation, where my mind goes in circles, not in new directions. I try to expose myself to new things to shake that up and get new thoughts going.

This is also resulting in an online history course, and rigorous study of Spanish, and researching art schools so I can start chipping away at some classes part time. I want my studious inclinations to complement and enhance my painting and business, not replace it.