The Examined Strife Worth Living

Continue reading ‘[PS] Snow-Fall.’

I was recently asked a series of questions for a presentation about veganism. After over three years of being vegan, I finally feel like I can express the answers to the following questions with confidence.

1. Why are you vegan?

I first started on my way to veganism through animal rights when I found out about the nature of slaughterhouses. I decided to research more and, over the next few years, learned of the cruelties in dairy farming, animal testing, hatcheries, and the “humane/free-range/cage-free” myth. Before cutting out animal cruelty from my life, I was a very hardcore meat eater, also fairly self-centered.

Around the same time I was developing ties to animal rights, I began to be informed about the human role in the environment and sustainability. At first I thought the reason to pursue environmental protection was because nature had an intrinsic worth, often linked with “its beauty”. Over time I figured that beauty is not worth, that we do not need to save the environment just because it is pleasing to our eyes or because it has a soul, nothing spiritual of the sort. The reason environmentalism is important is because our very livelihood depends on it – environmentalism is a humanitarian concern, especially when it comes to classism. Indigenous people, people of color and low-income communities are disproportionately threatened by environmental hazards.

Environmentalism is a big part of being vegan, and vice versa: the environmentalist cannot care about the well-being of the planet while supporting animal agribusiness.

At this point I realized how animal rights, environmentalism, and humanitarian interest (particularly world hunger) are indivisible. No matter where we wish to see change in the world at large, veganism plays a necessary role. It is so involved in the problems we face today that the question really needs to be, “why would someone not be vegan?”

2. How do people react when they notice?

A lot of people start to make excuses (“I don’t eat that much meat”) when they find out I’m vegan, even if I haven’t questioned their actions. The very nature of having a vegan around makes people feel examined. And yet they do not often turn those feelings of examination into actual self-reflection, but often self-defense.

Others try to neutralize any ethical or moral obligation they might have by turning my veganism into a dialogue solely about health – they go on and on about how they’re trying to be healthier and that veganism’s sooo healthy but they eat low-fat cheese so that counts for something and so on. When people distract themselves from veganism as a necessary moral cause and turn it into a diet fad, they don’t have to worry about whether they should be changing their actions.

Some people hide their discomfort in jokes or mockery or try to make themselves feel superior by claiming their life is better because they have a “wider variety” of food choices. They like to say “ewww vegan food” even if a minute ago they were drooling over your cooking and asking for seconds.

A very few bright, youthful, and inquisitive bunch have a desire to learn more. They are excited about the possibility of expanding their horizons and making small, permanent changes for the better. Even if they have some preconceived notions about the necessity of animal exploitation, they are more than happy to debate these points and relinquish them when sound reasoning proves them to be faulty.

Most people I meet don’t find out I’m vegan right away, it comes up naturally in later discourse or when we’re going out for food.

3. What is the hardest thing about veganism?

Mentioned above, the people who feel like they need to exert superiority over vegans by mentioning how awesome bacon is or how it must suck to be a vegan, the people who are childish enough to make gagging noises around your vegan chocolate cake right after they asked for a slice. People who think veganism is a diet, and being accused of “not caring about humans” are also high on the list.

4. Do you see yourself as an activist?

I saw myself as an activist in my younger years as I really had the time and energy to get out there, try to connect with people one-on-one, take extremely long bus rides just so I could participate in tabling or leafleting at events, bring up the issues more often. I’m currently in university and I don’t find myself having the free time or resources to be an activist like I used to. I try where I can to do what I can, but I would probably label myself an advocate. Some people may still consider me an activist because the requirements of activism have plummeted in recent years with the rise of “slacktivism”.

5. What is your favourite food?

I’m a sucker for anything cold and sweet – vegan ice cream cake is something I’d probably eat every day if I had the chance. Fruit smoothies are something I CAN actually have daily without killing myself or my budget. Besides sweet and cold, vegan corn dogs are perfection on a stick.

6. What is the best thing about being vegan?

The best thing about being vegan is that even when you don’t ask for any recognition or benefit in return, living a vegan life offers it to you. I don’t need anything special for trying my best every day, and I didn’t go into veganism expecting health benefits/personal benefits. And yet veganism helped me recover from an eating disorder, helps me save money on grocery shopping while I’m on an extremely tight budget, gives me incentive to discern whether everyday products can harm or help my total body health. It’s helped me become a great chef, connected me with great new friends, and offered an overall positive outlook on life.

So, I suppose that is, the best thing about being vegan is that while you’re using it to save others, it can save you as well.

The French Press sits on the counter while I spice the food to be cooked in the pan. I prepare the pancake mix, mixing the ingredients by hand until it appears satisfactory.

Briefly, while no one is listening, I hum the tune of The Promise Ring’s Wake Up April.

Wake up April, it’ll be summer soon…And you’ll be sipping your morning coffee in the afternoon…Walking slowly because there’s nowhere to go…But your heart keeps beating so, so, so…

There is something quite enjoyable about cooking someone else’s breakfast. Something in the act that humbly states: hello there -  it is the beginning of the day and you’re likely waking up, so I have made this for you. It’s to keep you alive and hopefully feeling well. I hope your morning is made slightly better by my actions. A warm or cold coffee? A pancake or two?

I suppose one might say that making a meal for anyone is akin to this. Perhaps, I am seeing too much in the simple act of making food for or with someone. However, I think in a few ways cooking is an action which is tied to the life process – we all need to eat in order for our biochemical reactions to continue – and thus there seems a certain charm in saying that I hope this keeps your biochemical-electrical nervous system operating, your heart beating, your lungs inhaling. Those neurons firing tiny sparks and producing thoughts and words weaved together from a network of seemingly chaotic methodology.

I suppose that’s why I don’t cook for many people. Sure, if I cook myself a meal and someone else is there I will offer them some food – that isn’t an issue; I mean this far more in the sense of cooking for the other person. I’m a fairly solitary individual when it comes to my home cooked meals – while I have a decent amount of friends, I am not comfortable enough to have them around at breakfast time as I stroll out of bed haphazardly, hair at twelve different angles, fixing my misaligned boxers after a night of unconscious movement.

So, next time you’re flipping pancakes… well, maybe you just enjoy cooking.

Can you imagine what it’d be like if the majority of the human population really believed in souls as some sort of quasi-tangible energy? And then the government acknowledged souls so that everyone ever born got a soul certificate after they passed a soul examination? Like the doctor flips the baby around and is all “yep, this baby’s got a soul” and you get your birth certificate and your soul certificate and go on your merry way.

And eventually an underground souls market would develop where you can sell your soul (certificate). There’d be worshippers of Satan in the underground, but there’d probably be clean-looking, middle aged Christian men walking around in suits with suitcases, looking for a dealer or a seller, for their first bought soul, because hey you never know when you need a little extra insurance for a rainy day, right? I mean, what if the man’s wife is held at gunpoint and the robber won’t let her go unless he forks over his soul? Then he’d never get to meet up with his wife in heaven.

Or maybe he just wants it around for the thrill. The thrill of having two souls. Or maybe, when he gets to heaven and turns in two souls instead of one, he’ll get some sort of bonus, be promoted to like second-tier of heaven.

So he dips into his spoiled daughter’s college funds and does business with some new-age hippie in a dingy bar on the bad side of the city, and everything’s lit in red and the music is just a little disturbing, like really slow dubstep. And this hippie looks way too high on something, the middle-aged business man starts to wonder whether it’s right to take a soul from this kid while he’s so far gone. Then the man thinks, well, this kid wasn’t getting into heaven like that anyway, he doesn’t need it, I need it, I need it for my wife and kids and for… well, whatever perks I can get out of it.

So the man spends a ridiculous amount of money on this piece of paper, and the kid’s kept it in really good condition, it’s laminated, letters sparkling and all, the one-and-only official document of this guy’s soul. He smooths out his tie, brushes his hair back, and thanks the kid, the soulless kid, smells a little like marijuana and cheap women’s perfume.

And he leaves, and the business man goes about his life. And one day, wouldn’t you know it, his wife is held at gunpoint by some maniac, some scrawny quiet white kid from the local college who went haywire, and he’s got this excessively large weapon against his wife’s head. And the kid as haywire as he is, looks over the wife, notices that she was probably just a trophy wife at some point in time. She’s still got a good body, she isn’t old, rather, she’s mature, and she’s not tired looking like all the rest of the old fucks in that town. And the kid’s yelling at this fuck in his business suit, carrying a golf bag, probably off for a game and some fancy dinner with his boss, and some promotion, and they’d drink expensive wine and treat the waitresses like shit…

He yells at the husband, give me your fucking soul old man and I’ll let her go, and the business man looks nervous, distraught, says he’s only got one soul, says he wants to meet up with his wife in heaven one day. The kid yells, pulling the gun closer to her face and she only lightly flinching, that one day’s gonna be sooner than you think he yells.

But the crazed young man doesn’t pull the trigger, he steals their Porsche, the Porsche that the spoiled daughter likes to call hers when her similarly spoiled friends are around, and he drives off with the woman, and the man’s standing in the driveway, clenching that second soul certificate in his pressed, clean, lined suit jacket pocket with his hands sweating.

The business man never sees his wife again, the police never find her. The woman’s bank account and material possessions are given to the daughter who started university in London that year, and she barely sees her father, and she knows that even though her mother died in that driveway a year ago that her dad’s doing alright. He’s with a new woman and she’s in her new life and she’s happy and he’s happy so why bother questioning it.

The new woman is younger than his wife, but looks rather similar. She’s not as smart as his wife, and she doesn’t come from as wealthy a family as his wife, but she lets him do things he couldn’t do before, he adores her youth. He wants to absorb her youth. He’s at that age where you begin to cling to youth and it’s a little depressing for most older men but this guy can actually pull it off. He dresses like the young, eats and drinks like the young, fucks like the young and he’s not that bad at the act. He adores her, spends all his money on her, he’s got plenty, but he needs plenty more – he’s taking her to Paris. He gets out the second soul from his bottom drawer, his sock drawer, smooths out the wrinkles he made that one day, finds a buyer – there’s always plenty of buyers – and he and his girlfriend make love in a bathroom at Le 58 tour Eiffel. He’s happy, she’s happy. His daughter’s getting piss drunk in university, she’s happy.

He comes out of the washroom after brushing his suit out straight and clean, she fixes her stockings and touches up her bright red lipstick and slinky dress. The restaurant is crowded, the patrons are all smiling and drinking, the city lights below glint off the large windows beside their table. They sit, eat, converse. His girlfriend points directly behind him and says, oh, doesn’t that older woman look a lot like me? But she’s so much prettier. She carries her maturity so well. I wish I could be that pretty when I’m older.

The man doesn’t even look behind him before choking on his seared duck foie gras with quince and barberry marmalade, and there’s a commotion eventually, when the waitress realizes this man’s really choking, and his girlfriend is making all of these Hollywood sobs, honestly dramatic with smudged mascara and heaping breaths. Nobody at the restaurant orders the foie gras for a while, no matter how many souls they’ve got packing.

Both the wife and the girlfriend attend the funeral. It goes how funerals go, stiff body in a box, bright and lovely day, flowers blooming, trimmed green graveyard trees, everyone’s in suits, daughter’s in a tight black dress sexting on her phone. It’s all over, they go eat bad finger sandwiches and drink expensive wine.

The man doesn’t get into heaven. Heaven doesn’t exist. Neither does hell. He’s just a rotting body in a box who threw away a fuckload of money on a worthless piece of paper, then got it all back for a trip to Paris to screw in a bathroom and choke on forcefed, fat, dead duck.

People buy and sell worthless pieces of paper for crazy amounts of money in any universe. In the universe where we all believe in souls, in the universe where nobody believes in souls.

If one wishes to truly know time to the best of their abilities, what do they study? (By no means do I claim the following to be an exhaustive list). Do they promise themselves to the physics, which will teach the wielder of its studies to know in measurement, understanding its scalar quantity in relation to gravity and motion, how the laws of the universe apply time as it is, mostly independent of our experiences?

Do they study senescence, a specialty of biology that examines the accumulative changes of aging on the human body and mind? Should time be examined merely by the toll it reaps on the person, a search for the endogenous and hereditary keys to such a molecular structure? This study of time is near opposite from the way physics addresses time – it is not only in relation to the viewer that the biologist views time, but it is the viewer itself that the biologist considers to contain these secrets.

Do they study philosophy, for a broad combination of both the viewer and the external forces? I clearly privilege philosophy’s versatility in the way I speak of it foremost, as I see no need to obscure my bias. But whose theory, if any, do we take of both the perception and reality of time? Do we study all theorists of the past and consider their arguments to compose a full view of time and its passing in philosophical search - fatalism, reductionism, growing universe theory - or do we examine it from a different wisdom lover’s eye? Perhaps the ethics of time – time spent, time wasted, time gained… time as a finite resource, and so the ethics of time resembling in many senses an environmental philosophy and the morality of resource management. Or perhaps we will look at the aesthetics of time, bringing senescence’s influence into the picture on a rather superficial but in some ways entertaining level. Is there a way to incorporate the logic of time, and what would that study look like?

Does the student of time devote themselves in vain to becoming the polymath of the subject, despite the pervasive, nagging reality that all of their short time on earth will be stretched thin over many faculties of knowledge, hoping that the limits of human mortality and mental capacity can cope with what time demands of them?

An excerpt from a 2007 text by Marc Bekoff (Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado), called The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy and Why They Matter.

The field of animal emotions – which is a specific area of focus within the larger scientific discipline of cognitive ethology, or the study of animal minds – has changed a great deal in the past thirty years. When I first began my studies, researchers were almost all skeptics who spent their time wondering if dogs, cats, chimpanzees, and other animals felt anything. Since feelings don’t fit under a microscope, these scientists usually didn’t find any – and as I like to say, I’m glad I wasn’t their dog! But thankfully, there are fewer and fewer skeptics today, and while debates over whether animals have emotions still occur, the question of real importance is becoming why animal emotions have evolved the way they have. In fact, the paradigm is shifting to such an extent that the burden of proof now falls more often to those who still argue that animals don’t experience emotions. My colleagues and I no longer have to put tentative quotes around such words as happy or sad when we write about an animal’s inner life. If our dog, Fido, is observed to be angry or frightened, we can say so with the same certainty with which we discuss human emotions. Scientific journals and the popular press regularly publish stories and reports on joy in rats and grief in elephants, and no one blinks.

It’s bad biology to argue against the existence of animal emotions. Scientific research in evolutionary biology, cognitive ethology, and social neuroscience supports the view that numerous and diverse animals have rich and deep emotional lives.

…Charles Darwin’s well-accepted ideas about evolutionary continuity,that differences among species are differences in degree rather than in kind, argue strongly for the presence of animal emotions, empathy, and moral behaviour.

… And there are always surprises. Just when we think we’ve seen it all, new scientific data and stories appear that force us to rethink what we know and to revise our stereotypes. For example, just after receiving the galley proofs of this book, I came across a story in the December 2, 2006 issue of New Scientist magazine about emotions in whales. It turns out that humpback whales, killer whales, and sperm whales possess spindle cells in the same area of their brains as spindle cells in human brains. This brain region is linked with social organization, empathy, intuition about the feelings of others, as well as rapid, gut reactions. Spindle cells, once thought to be unique to humans and other great apes, are believed to be important in processing emotions. And whales actually have more of them than humans do.

All mammals (including humans) share neuroanatomical structures and neurochemical pathways that are important for feelings, but do all animals feel the same things? Research has shown that mice are empathic to rodents, but it turns out that they’re fun-loving as well. We also will hear stories of pleasure-seeking iguanas, a horse with a sense of humor, amorous whales, elephants who suffer from psychological flashbacks and post-traumatic stress disorder, a grieving otter, a bereaved donkey, pissed-off baboons, sentient fish, and a sighted dog who served as a “seeing-eye dog” for his canine buddy.

While we might expect to find close, enduring, and endearing emotional relationships forming between members of the same species, improbable relationships often occur between animals of wildly different species, even between animals who are normally predator and prey! Such is the case with Aochan, a rat snake who befriended a dwarf hamster named Gohan, at Tokyo Mutsugoro Okoku Zoo.

If a snake and a hamster can become friends, then why not humans and other animals?

Othering or Constitutive Other is a centuries-old philosophical concept which has gained popular use among modern social movements, causes, and ideologies. However, I find that the popular use of the Other takes the idea out of original context and applies it only to their movement’s antagonists.

In current gender studies, the group accused of othering is defined somewhat by Beauvoir’s take on the matter, that the man is the self and the woman (thus the title “the second sex”) is “The Other”. The male uses othering in this case to constitute a sexual object. In Imperialism and Colonial critique, the antagonist is the White (Anglo-Saxon Protestant, to be specific) individual (though again often male) and uses this technique to support aggression by means of manifest destiny to exploitation of homelands for profit. But, I believe, mental or social creation constituting the Other does not just arise from the malicious, but the maligned as well. It can come from superiority and be produced in inferiority, from the oppressors to the oppressed, both symptoms of environmental factors.

For now I will talk of two ways we distinguish the other: through inferiority (or alienation) and through superiority (or conformity).

Inferiority expresses the other as (nearly or almost) everyone else for the sake of rationalizing hardships or traumatic events against themselves early on in life, such as child abuse or neglect, bullying, severe injury; the mindset created by “the inferior” that fosters othering is there to find a reason in these wrongdoings.

They believe there must be something different about them or their scenario to warrant the pain/harassment that they have experienced. This seems to manifest as alienation in many instances.

It comes down to the statement: “They are the other, so it only makes sense that I should be treated or treat myself in a different (lesser) manner than I treat others”.

Superiority expresses the other as a select group or groups of beings to rationalize certain forms of praise or leverage that they have received in their lives, such as receiving better treatment than siblings, coming from a wealthy family in a poor neighbourhood or school district (seeing one’s advantages compared to their peers), being overtly warned against other persons (being told by parents not to hang out with, come in contact with, or speak to a certain type of individual or specific being); the mindset created by “the superior” that fosters othering is there to find a reason in blessings.

The extra (often unwarranted/freely given) praise “the superior” receives is supported by and further generates the result of profit, assuaging guilt, propaganda to unite their own kind, general exploitation.

It comes down to the statement: “They are the other, so it is only my right to treat them in a different (lesser) manner than myself.”

Both “the superior” and “the inferior” are suffering from a sort of mistreatment. Both could benefit from curiosity and the realization of how much they share in common with all other beings. Othering is a sickness created by placing differences above similarities, rather than seeing each as equal qualitative and quantitative values of assessment. Finally, they must begin acknowledging that different treatment should not mean lesser treatment.

The news warned for hours into the night about the oncoming “snow emergency”. It was around 8 at night when I headed out to pick up a few things to eat, the ground was completely free of any traces of snow. There was not a drop of rain either, and while it was cold and a little windy, I imagine it was no more worse than an average Southern Canadian tail-end of winter. No word from the university yet on whether or not there would be mass-cancellations, and so I hauled my two bags of various food items off the bus and into the streets and towards home with the intent of an early morning.

I’d arrived home with spirits crushed for reasons I couldn’t quite identify on my own. Perhaps my mental capacities had received frost-bite on the way home – this seemed likely, for I found myself almost chanting, repeating a singular mantra as to ignore the winds which slashed at my bare hands. This pervasive phrase ate away at me, though I again imagine no more than the average winter did. Alone on the street I could chant whatever I pleased, there would be no passerby that night to rightly categorize me as one of the many insane of our city.

At first it was a mumble. Wrthls. Wrthfrmth. Wrmfrothss. But then, a strange courage emanated from the idea.  The concept of knowing where I stood, what value was to be attached to the body I lugged through the world, motivated me to keep a steady pace homewards bound. Worthless. Worthless. Worthless! In a way, I was breathless – how simple it was to deduct my worth. It was less. Less than any other marvelous being I knew. Less than any personality I may have bumped into on campus, or in the malls, in the grocery store. The tub of almond yogurt in the bag tapping at my knees with every step even had a set worth, a value to the consumer. But the body, its method of transportation, had no niche market whatsoever.

Worthless. You couldn’t give this thing away for free, if you tried!

The warnings came hours into the night, and as I sat finally within the brief warmth of my old home, so did my words which drifted to ears and eyes of those whose worth was largely in-quantifiable. Whose beauty was innumerable. Whose smile was distinct, whose voice was enchanting. I sat there in my worthlessness, chatting jovially to those who wouldn’t be sold even for a million dollars or more. Some sensed a melancholy in my worthlessness and attempted to cheer me through widely unsuccessful means. I attempted to be less burdensome. I also attempted to distract my mind from that which directed me to finding worthlessness in the first place.

If I were to honestly reflect on the source of my self-discovery, I would quickly find it to be a molehill that I had built into a mountain in the cold, windy night. But from my mountain, I can marvel the beauties of others. From the molehill, all one can do is attempt to marvel the self. Why should I be in want of self-adoration, when there are so many greater bodies? Celestial bodies, conceptual bodies, human bodies. Without worth, I can decide to see the sky and the Earth, and the emotional beings which plant their memories into the dirt.

At 3AM, I was still awake, and had resigned myself to a night spent shivering on the couch, vowing not to go to class the next morning even if the storm didn’t come. I drifted to sleep speechlessly, catching the first few minutes of Woody Allen’s 1978 Interiors. When I awoke early and stiffly, my dazed eyes stared out unto a snow-covered monstrosity, of wonder and terror, action and passion.

Well, just snow and more snow, really.

I have visited an establishment almost every night this week. I find a table and order a drink. Sometimes, I’ll order a beer and a coffee, drinking the latter after the first. The caffeine enhances the effect, making it all the more potent. I won’t order any food despite the new menu looking appealing. I feel no desire for food.

I listen and watch the bearded and long-haired musicians. And the almost Dionysian dancers that follow them – once the guitars begin playing and the drums thunder. Fact of the matter is I’m here to heal my wounds and everyone knows it by the look of my eyes and the grimace of my face; in these familiar places with these familiar things. Places I once visited by myself, with her, and now by myself again.

The books line the walls and I cannot help but smile as I come across a new one each moment. The book I had on hold is still here, waiting for me. I’d feel guilty to deny it a good home after it has waited a few weeks. I make the purchase and sit down to read it. It would have been perfect.

I cannot help but ponder on these evenings. If I had simply been the man I was instead of the man I thought was wanted, would I be here? Did she ever love me at all – or was I just an error she was too afraid to admit to? If I travel far enough, if I walk until I hit the edge of Ontario – will I find someone waiting there? The cold water, the sky that feels like you could fall into it if you stare up long enough. The tall trees and the fresh air. I’ll row a canoe out into the middle of the river and sit with nothing but oblivion around me and the Milky Way above. And then when morning comes I’ll row to the other side of the river and be gone.

I woke up. At the foot of the bed was a small metallic tray normally reserved for baking. Two mugs side by side sat there, filled with steaming coffee. A few sweetener packets were tossed to their left and a carton of soy milk to the right.

I looked up. She was there. Smiling.

She walked over, lifted her coffee mug and drank deeply. I did the same and when we were done we looked at one another. We made love and then with an opening of my eyes it was over. Dreams can be home to such deception.

I desire to run away to a solitary cave, but the warm coils of their limbs clamp my body firmly into the electric chair. They listen in their own ways.

Sadness. I have love hate for you, so much love hate, love hate. Can he tell a hawk from a handsaw like I can? Does he like your drinks? Does he like your music? The stark contrast of what I offer compared to… him. I dearly hope you mistake this for a longing, a longing for me. I want you to know how hard I am trying to make you cry. I want you to cry.

Without you. Look, see? Time without you. Now that I have time. See, this book you told me to read around our anniversary, I’m reading it now.  Look, your favourite playwright, favourite play, favourite bindings. Look, your favourite drink. Look, your favourite bookstore. I am pushing her buttons, and as you may see it is only to harm her.

He deserves to do a little less waiting. And indeed, he is a waiting man. He has waiting eyes.

There is something shockingly intuitive in his advice. He smiles innocently, trusting me, supporting me. The tongue is an adventurous, lovely muscle. Although, his lips greet other places, certainly places that no child should ever venture. I wonder if he sees me as a woman, because his lips greet me as if greeting a child. He kisses me on the forehead.

Aristotle says in book one of the Nicomachean Ethics: “still, it presumably seems better, indeed only right, to destroy even what is close to us if that is the way to preserve truth. We must especially do this as philosophers [lovers of wisdom]; for though we love both the truth and our friends, reverence is due to the truth first”. 

At the time he was talking about critiquing the Platonic idea of Forms, but something about that last line struck me, as I was reading it for the first time, to be a rule which I’ve subconsciously obeyed, and diligently so, in all of my studies in philosophy, and on a broader scale my views of truth vs. niceties in all my social interactions. I am sure it may come as an unpopular opinion to some, though others like myself would see it as the only real option, that we owe a certain reverence to the truth over the possibility of making someone we love happy with lies.

I can see in some ways why this rule could be a selfish one – keeping the truth hidden often hurts the one hiding it more than it does the one it is being hidden from. So to tell the truth is sometimes to unleash your burden of truth onto others, who would have been happier not knowing. One could possibly argue that in worse situations, to lie or conceal the truth is an act of ethical martyrdom, if you will.

But I think the stronger argument is for truth being a social building, and not destroying, tool. When you and another individual can speak openly and honestly with each other, you form a real means of connection. You know what you see and hear is really that person, and not a facade. It is very hard for many people to be brutally honest, so I don’t blame those who cannot achieve this amount of openness. Nor do I think that one must practice pure openness and honesty with every single individual they meet, for that is taxing. But one day you might meet a friend who deep down seeks the same level of reality and humanity in human contact, if you seek it at all, and that relation can instantly become your most cherished of all friends.

I’ve just recently hurt someone I care dearly for with the truth. But as this rule is embedded in everything I think or do, I could have no other choice but to do so. Maybe everything will be alright.

In the first few pages of Anthem, Ayn Rand sets forth the sort of twisted dystopia that she believes arises from socialist value and makes evident the sorts of action, will, and dogma that she would rather place value in. Something I find rather troublesome is when her character, Equality 7-2521, says, “We [meaning I] were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts which are forbidden. It has always given us wishes which men may not wish. We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us and no power to resist it. This is our wonder and our secret fear, that we know and we do not resist.”

Now, immediately this concept was worrisome to me. Here, Rand’s character is a man of her own philosophy – one might call him a leader, someone who succeeds beyond all others, someone destined for greatness. Others might rightly call him power-hungry, self-centered, and so on. The evil/curse he speaks of is his desire to value the self, to follow his own “thoughts which are forbidden”. He wishes to disobey the rules of his government and his people to find himself.

But this is not the dialogue of a man with curiosity, but rather, a man who wants to validate his desire to obey urges while ignoring all consequences. He wants to give in to his drive to power, he says “there is no will in us [myself] and no power to resist it”. Rand is here, unfortunately, painting man as someone who has absolutely no self control and no desire for it, nor need.

It is a harsh and rather horrible belief that man, particularly man in the male sense and not in the humankind sense, has absolutely no need to consider self-control, and that he is not capable of it, that we should forgive him, or worse, accept his misdemeanours as natural, biological, a fact of masculinity.

This is primarily categorical of the sort of mentality that is often considered to be behind rape and rape apology, that it is in man’s nature to seek this sort of power, and that he naturally has no will against it, and (in Rand’s case for Objective Egoism) that it is unhealthy or unjust to suppress or otherwise chastise man for wanting these things.

I do not think I am reading too much into this short introduction of the character, merely I am foremost seeing the true disadvantage of his sort of entitled thinking that comes along with anti-socialist value.

I believe all humans are naturally capable of will and self-control, it is through helping people develop as individuals and as a community that they will learn when it is necessary. It is through perversion contained within societal norms and gender roles that we unleash the “uncontrollable” ego onto the world.

One book I’ve read, enjoy, and recommend to most is Philosophy Bites  (by Warburton and Edmonds) which had an introductory section where each philosopher that was interviewed by the authors was asked to give their definition of what philosophy was (or meant to them). Quite a few were, not surprisingly, contradictory to other answers in that section. Many others decided to simply laugh at the question, knowing that any answer they gave would never be quite right to sum up the whole of what constitutes “philosophy”. Some gave a simple sentence, something that sounded prophetic and vague, or just described the sort of philosophy that they pertained to in their own works.

A few seemingly pessimistic speakers decided they would state with certainty that nobody could even come close to defining philosophy, and that basically anyone could call themselves a “philosopher” and get away with it. However, I do believe that there is something very specific with the study of philosophy that cannot be found in other fields, and that it takes these certain elements to call oneself a “philosopher”.

Commonly, philosophy is comprised of 5 major categories: epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, logic, and aesthetics. From my perspective, what people think of most when they hear the word “philosophy” and are not acquainted with or in a career/study pertaining to philosophy is simply metaphysics, though sometimes including epistemology. Ethics and logic are either placed haphazardly under the branch of politics (though political philosophy exists, I would not call all politics “under philosophy”), religion, or abstract maths/logistics/computing (the latter in terms of logic). Aesthetics is almost always considered the study of art, though it comprises much more than what we typically consider works of art, even “abstract” art or “ultra-modern” art.

Since these five categories contain such a wide range of topics, and since altogether they are made of concepts that are anywhere from ancient to modern, what philosophy “is” can be a hard definition to peg.

Philosophy, then, might be best summarized as such: the extension of the human mind to problems that cannot be solved alone by strict data, assumptions, emotions, or culturally subjective values, otherwise known as the application of meditation and extensive thought to truths or values which may at first seem unapparent.

Obviously, this is also a very vague and lacklustre answer for someone looking to pinpoint the heart of philosophy. I do not claim to do it justice with my answer; there is no simple way I believe I can convey how necessary, unique, or distinct the study of philosophy truly is. Even a dictionary definition of philosophy (“The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge and all it constitutes”) might shine a better light on this pursuit of wisdom. But in theory, aside from my short and vague answer, I think philosophy is used as a catalyst for other faculties: philosophy is able to kickstart a society’s endeavours in a certain field, whether it is physics’ roots in philosophy, biology’s beginnings, the rise of English and cultural studies from philosophical concepts… philosophy can also pick up where a faculty or category of study finishes – when we have learned as much as we can possibly know in chemistry, or astronomy, what is there to do with that knowledge?

Philosophy supplements, accentuates, and actuates the knowledge of mankind. My obvious admiration for the encompassing study of philosophy is why I can choose no other life path to pursue.

Especially in the face of prejudice.

What got me thinking about it? Personally, I’ve wondered whether or not someone perceived as intelligent, who is also bigoted in some way (racism being a clear example here) is actually intelligent. I’ve often come to the conclusion that intelligence is not one single entity but many comes in many parts, and for someone to be truly intelligent they should not be deficient in any one part. Which is a high and convoluted requirement for intelligence, but I’m talking a clearer form of intellect and not merely one based on societal norms and preconceived biases of “smart” people. So I think this sort of extreme examining is necessary, even if just as a precursor.

When I say intelligence comes in many parts, this is not a particularly new idea, it is merely one which is not given enough credit. This theory is otherwise known as the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Proposed by Howard Gardner in the 80’s, I think it is one of the more cleaner and apt understandings of, at least human, intellect.

The multiple intelligences are: logical-mathematical, spacial, linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, naturalistic, and existential. Gardner differentiates “existential intelligence” from spiritual or religious intelligence, perhaps to keep the category welcoming/broad or conversely to narrow it down to exclude religious beliefs as a sign of intellect.

Now, to think of an example to apply this to: a famous mathematician is also known for being horribly racist. Are they intelligent? One may argue that the mathematician is intelligent beyond belief merely because of his work in mathematics. He does not need to be a great musician or a great botanist to be extremely smart, neither does he have to care about persons of colour to be intelligent.

However, someone else (this is the side I would advocate from) may argue that racism, or general feelings of superiority/prejudice based on physical traits such as skin colour or biological traits/heritage exists due to the lack of critical thinking. The mathematician lacks the intelligence to understand the basic principles of human nature – he is deceived in thinking that there are any major differences between himself, a white man, and a black man (at least differences that would warrant lesser treatment) and thus is deficient in the category of basic logic. Now we may propose that not only does the mathematician have deficiencies in intellect categories like Interpersonal, but he is lacking in the intelligent domain that we would consider his own, the logical-mathematical.

But we might question where we draw the line on certain actions in relation to their intellect: is racism a deficiency of logic? Or is it a deficiency of empathy? Personally, I would conclude that it is a deficiency of both – it is neither logically sound to deny other sentient individuals of basic rights and respect, nor is it showing any signs of compassion. It is a cruelty as well as a logical inconsistency. To pride oneself on reasoning and abstractions while ignoring abstract concepts of human rights or otherwise is a sign of lack of general intellect.

So I find my answer to “Are the bigoted still intelligent?” to be “not quite”. To have a deficiency in any category of logic (which would be different from just not having excess knowledge in that category, i.e. one knows a fair bit of logic and mathematics but is not a genius [basic intelligence] vs. one has a large amount of knowledge but is extremely inconsistent on many occasions, disregarding some facts for others [intelligent deficiency]) is to be a less intelligent individual.

TL;DR - I’d definitely say that being a bigot, or choosing ignorance in some respect, makes you less intelligent.

Extra critique: some problems with the Theory of Multiple Intelligences arise when we inquire the intelligence of someone who has lost the capability for certain spacial, linguistic, or bodily processes. This theory may be unnecessarily harsh or exclusive against the disabled, but to what extent I can not rightly say.

With a short break in between exams, obligations, and over-stressing, I decided to pick up a few magnificent items from the library.

I’ll give you a little detail on why I chose each one.

The “No-Nonsense Guide” to Animal Rights, by Catherine Grant. Why did this appeal to me, when I don’t need any further motivation to participate in the animal rights movements? For starters, I do like having a catalogue of texts to recommend to others or just have read in case someone asks me how accurate or effective a certain book is at conveying the movement. Second, that the idea of “no-nonsense” being involved intrigued me – I like to get down to the core and work it out clearly and wholly. Last, because when I looked over the contents section, I noticed two chapters to be very interesting: one addressing the myth that only middle-upper class, Western peoples care about the rights of animals, and another addressing the reality of how hurting animals can also hurt humans. So, it seems like it will be a decent address of the many aspects of this movement.

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe. Defoe’s tale may have first been published in the 1700’s, but I still think it can hold great wonders for the minds of our time. Robinson Crusoe is about a man who runs away from home, and after an exciting slew of sea adventures, he finds himself shipwrecked, alone on a deserted island. And the chapters are not filled with the same sort of boring activities that you might see in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (if you like that book, sorry), but veritable intrigue.

Nothing: Something to Believe in, by Nica lalli. The memoir of an art educator living in America. She confronts issues of faith, tolerance, and respect, all with gleeful humour. Some reasons I picked out this book was because she was bold enough to begin with the strange fact: that many Americans are more afraid of Atheists than they are of cold-blooded killers. She finds that “nothing is a philosophy to be embraced rather than feared”, and I quite like that. It was nice to see this book among the many evangelizing choices trying to force you to accept their God or burn in an eternal prison.

And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. Chosen namely because I had no idea that these two authors had ever collaborated, and what a strange title for a book. It chronicles their summer and their reaction to a shocking crime.

The Inspired Vegan, by Bryant Terry. Terry is a fairly big figure in the world of veganism these days, and I had never had the opportunity to take out one of his cookbooks until now. I feel like I can learn a lot from his creativity here, not just about foods I hadn’t even heard about – but books and music. With nearly every recipe, Bryant gives a recommended song and a recommended novel, which is an extremely unique way to integrate cooking into inspiration. For example, with the Masala Chai, Terry offers “One Drop” by Bob Marley and the Wailers; Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steven Solomon; and A Drop of Life directed by Shalini Kantayya. He also offers perspective into community and history with every chapter.

Everyday Happy Herbivore, by Lindsay S. Nixon. In short, the original Happy Herbivore cookbook was just so damn good that I had to check out this one. If you can get your hands on ANY Happy Herbivore cookbooks, do so immediately. There are smoothies that I’d never thought of trying (and I thought I’d tried them all), quick and tasty breakfasts, scary-amazing muffins, and the number one thing I’ve never been able to make in under 30 minutes: soups and stews. Winter is coming, let’s get this soup moving!

The Art and Craft of Coffee: An Enthusiast’s Guide to Selecting, Roasting, and Brewing Exquisite Coffee, by Kevin Sinnott. Because, well, duh, coffee *drool*. It also has a nice section on how to know the difference between certain ethical coffee labels (like fair trade, sustainable farming, Direct Trade, Shade Grown…).

And that’s my book haul for the next… oh, few weeks or so.

I’m just about to begin watching a documentary called, “The Superior Human”.  It’s central focus is calling into question our human claim that as homo sapiens we are supremely valuable, that we hold unique talents and features that make us undoubtedly “better” than anything else. This feeling of superiority, I think, is generated in many ways in our society. The easiest example is of course religions or spiritual doctrines which believe that the Earth or even the entire Universe is made for our own use, that we have been given a divine right to any matter that surrounds us (whether that “matter” is a sentient being or not). But there are other systems of belief that can bring us to hold this sort of hubris – political doctrines, cultural paradigms, anything really.

Now, if that’s all it was, that we held different beliefs and all due to certain feelings, there would be no reason to examine human superiority. But we must ask again just what this superiority leads to. We must understand what degree of damage or decay is brought about as a direct result of these unquestioned norms. It’s not completely irrational to suppose that we have very self destructive tendencies as a species, and this hubris might be the biggest and most dangerous of them. But that’s not to cause a panic, but rather an awareness – are there things, even small ones, we can do to change the nature of our elitism? Are there ways to preserve humanity while removing, at least in part, the ways in which we threaten our own lives? Perhaps we should look at this as “group therapy”, where the group is the whole of mankind. While a lot of people aren’t fond of group therapy (and I don’t blame them), there’s probably something we need to figure out before we can really start to move forward in our lives.

Therapy is both inspiring and frightening, I know, and it can also feel very imposed. You might feel great anger at my mere suggestion that there is anything wrong with human superiority. Or, you might be curious. Either way, I don’t offer this as a new improved way to live your life, but a way to thrive. That’s really all the choice boils down to: live or thrive. Can we do it?

Do you have a list of books that you haven’t gotten around to yet, but will eventually? You know, when you just have a little extra time to go to the library or bookstore, and then when you have a little extra time to start reading it, and again when you just have that tiny amount of “extra time” to get past the first chapter?

This is a frivolous question to ask any avid book reader who has work or study, or both (throw in a significant other and a budding social life, and the question becomes completely obsolete). There are websites built entirely around helping these avid readers keep track of all the titles they come by that they’ll “read eventually”. My preferred form of this sort of torture is Goodreads. I currently have thirty-eight beauteous book titles sitting in my “to-read” category, reminding me how I’m a horrible, apathetic troglodyte and if I’m never going to read books, well then, I should just give up, start watching Jersey Shore, start shopping at American Apparel and become one of those “I don’t really like to read” people. Obviously, just because there’s a lot of books I haven’t gotten around to doesn’t mean that I have diminished my IQ to that of a very brain-damaged snail. But it sometimes feels that way, especially when I’m being too hard on myself.

For instance, I never finished David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King. Can you imagine: an unfinished novel, and I haven’t even finished the unfinished portion! It’s almost like I haven’t even started reading it at all!

I’ve also just begun reading Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, the inspiration for the movie Stalker. Despite having already seen the movie numerous times, I hear that it is only a loose adaptation, and so I think I could gain something from giving it a read. There are also books I’m less committed to reading in the near future and just sort of muse about reading, such as Guy deBord’s Society of The Spectacle, Margaret Atwood’s The Year of The Flood, a few Bukowski novels, some vegan cook books, The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe… quite a few books lay on the distant sidelines.

I did finish reading a novel I received for my birthday, the new Lemony Snicket book. Though it’s for a more youthful audience, and I like to pretend I’m not as youthful as I really am (tragic flaw), I really did enjoy it. I breezed through it in two days because Mr. Snicket got me hooked again. I honestly think he’s better at writing mystery than most contemporary adult Mystery authors.

I bought a book on evolution after I had a long debate with a creationist. I suppose I just wanted to make sure my own knowledge on the subject wasn’t as lacking as his.

I take one hour long bus rides to and from campus every week day, so it’s silly for me to argue that I “don’t have the time”. I have some time, most of it I waste. I’m not sure why I waste time, knowing that the individual human lifespan is not infinite. But I don’t suppose anyone really “knows” that, or that is to say, no one understands it until you’ve got 5 minutes left to live. One day I hope to have a grasp of my own mortality, maybe it’d make me want to read a few more books each month. It also might make me suicidal.

Haven’t even read The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao yet. Or Nabokov’s Glory. Or The Demon Haunted World. Oh, dear oh dear….

Staring unnervingly at my textbook in the dim light. Aristotle, what do you mean? Why are you using so many unnecessary words? Why does it matter what the difference between a primary and a secondary substance is? And how am I supposed to drag an entire paper out of a few run-on sentences that barely contain any legitimate points?

I question whether or not this is what I really want to be doing. I know, if I keep on this path I’ll probably be faced with Aristotle’s smug, incoherent arguments again and again. One day I’ll eloquently understand what he means rather than ram-shambling together a less than adequate description of his Categories. But even if I have the ability, do I have the desire?

Aristotle, I have had it with your Categories. I would very much enjoy casting every mention of primary substance into an eternal flame, where it will burn for ages until your most boring statements are scraped from the very existence of the world. And I would not feel an ounce of shame, no. I would not mourn if the world were to suddenly lose all of Aristotle’s most prominent works. Socrates, on the other hand, I would mourn. Plato, yes. If we had all but forgotten Marcus Aurelius, I would feel as if the history of philosophy had lost a great philosopher king. But Aristotle? Why won’t he just… shoo?