I’m not loving it.. are you?

This month, I will be celebrating five months since I’ve stopped eating meat. I wanted to write a post on this topic because it’s one that lies very closely to my heart and one to which I give great importance in my daily life. I do believe that people that eat meat are doing something wrong but I also think they aren’t aware of the fact that eating meat is wrong, I know I wasn’t. Before I became a vegetarian, a bunch of my friends made the decision first. They used to tell me all about the meat industry, the animal torture, what goes on behind closed doors, but I just let their words go into one ear and then directly out the other, I couldn’t care less. Looking back at it now, I feel terrible for being so ignorant but, as Huxley shows in his novel Brave New World, happiness is ignorance as ignorance is bliss. I felt that it was fine to turn a blind eye towards what was going on in the meat industry, I felt that it wasn’t my business and I felt that my decision to be a vegetarian wouldn’t change anything anyways. As convinced as I was, I was wrong on every single one of those points.  I soon talked to another friend of mine who had adopted a vegan lifestyle and he spoke very delicately about the topic and told me to look into it, nothing more. I eventually decided to do it, if the friends I loved and cared about felt that this topic was so important, maybe I should try to understand why. I started watching the documentary Earthlings and five minutes into it I realized that this was something I couldn’t start and not finish. Starting this documentary was the first step I took towards vegetarianism and a step I couldn’t retract. I was painfully glued to my laptop screen for the next hour and a half and was watching these innocent creatures tortured and torn apart in front of me.  They started to look more and more like children as the film went on. They are innocent, curious, shy, loving, and mean no harm. As the quote goes, if animals had a devil, mankind would be their devil. We are killing innocent beings for our pleasure, for our taste buds, for our man-made, money hungry industry.

There’s nothing more beautiful than nature. Eating meat not only harms the animals, it harms nature, every single aspect of it. It harms us. We tend to separate ourselves from nature but in reality we are part of it just as the birds are part of the sky and the bark is part of the trees. It’s a symphony, everybody’s in the band, we all play our role, and the world is all of ours. I often hear the argument that, if we are the same, why is it all right for other animals to eat other animals but not for us? It’s simple really. The sickening aspect of the meat industry today is its brutality. The torture these animals undergo is disgusting and in no way should a good tasting meal compensate for the fact that this animal has endured hell to be put in front of you on your plate.  In the animal kingdom, animals eat one another because, for them, it’s natural. Is it natural for us? At one point it wasn’t. We only began eating meat after the ice age, because of the scarcity of food. Prior to that, we ate plants, vegetables, and fruits. Yes, our brain grew exponentially once we started eating meat but it’s not the only thing that grew. Our sickness grew, our blood pressure increased, our cholesterol increased. A person who doesn’t eat meat has a 17% risk of having a heart attack; a man who does eat meat has a 54% risk of having a heart attack. These statistics don’t lie; eating meat clearly makes us sicker and puts us at a higher risk of heart disease and cancer.  If it’s so good for us, why is it killing us? The way meat is made today is not healthy. It’s brutal and ruthless. A society that feeds on violence will only increasingly spread violence. The reason why meat made our brains grow is because of what is in the meat, the protein, the iron, etc. But don’t get it wrong, we can get all the above from plants and natural foods. It wasn’t eating meat that made our brains grow, it was eating the things we need for human development and growth.

For me, not eating meat is a choice I made because of the disgraceful things we are doing to obtain the meat we eat today. I’m not saying you are immoral if you eat meat or that eating meat makes you a sorry excuse for a human being, absolutely not. All that I’m saying is that an average human being eats about 200 pounds worth of animals in a year. 200 pounds worth of animals that are being slaughtered, tortured and killed only because of what they taste like. We don’t need meat; it isn’t an essential part of our diet. Proteins, you can get them from vegetables and fruits. Iron you can get from beans, spinach, peas, oatmeal, broccoli, even strawberries. It’s a change in lifestyle but one that is widely accepted and respected all around the world. Food is an important part of our existence but, by eating the meat today, violence also becomes part of that existence. Violence will breed violence just as love will breed love.  I don’t believe that I need to shove my beliefs down anybody’s throat because eating meat is a choice that should make an individual more pacifistic which is exactly what it’s done to me. All I advice people to do is become informed and base their choices upon the way that they evaluate that particular piece of information.

The truth about exams

If your life resembles mine then you’re currently facing the last few days of university and preparing yourself for the exams that are coming up. If your life is anything like mine, relax. These moments that often seem so life changing really aren’t. A grade will never define you, a number at the top of your page wont change you and will never legitimize your intelligence. However, that’s not an excuse not to give a damn about what’s coming up but it is an excuse to take it with ease. Enjoy what you’re learning rather than having it consume you, take the best out of it and have learning be something personal, an experience, for you. As Twain said, never let schooling get in the way of your education. Take these exams as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and what you want from life, where you want to go and how you plan to get there. Don’t see it as a grade, see it as an opportunity to develop and grow as an individual as well as gaining a deeper understanding of who you are as a person. Rather then giving you anymore useless, pretentious advice, here are some tracks that I find particularly helpful to study to. Good luck

City of Angels pt.1

I drive on her streets cause she’s my companion
I walk through her hills and she knows who I am
She sees my good deeds and she kisses me windy

Our love is like today’s trees

The place I am has no trees
They haven’t been here for centuries
Legend has it and the story goes
That the earth is the only one who knows
How they vanish, like you and I
With the wind their teardrops fly

Compact, together to the factory doors
Their blissful leaves now painful sores
Scared, lost and unprepared
Soft whispers of those who cared
Now they’d all race to their doom
What they had ended too soon

The paths they used to light up
Now become merely a cup
Out of which the soulless drink
Not caring about the beauty which they sink
Down and away with what used to be
Now there’s no more you and me

You’d think things last forever
I’d tell you that’s awfully clever
But then look at the trees
And how they used to be

If something so steadfast
Can’t even last
You and I have no chance
And like dead trees, we’ll never dance

Stop at Nothing

This needs no introduction, no words, just your attention. Open your mind, stop KONY 2012. Let’s abolish modern day slavery, let’s shape the future. The time is NOW – let’s be the change we want to see in the world.

Video link:

 

*

Two of my most recent paintings

The first one is inspired by a quote by Shakespeare that I came across a few days ago: “It is not in the stars to hold our
destiny but in ourselves”

The second one is Conrad Roset inspired. I saw many of his works and loved how he played with water color and pencil so I tried to do the same.

 

Never forget:
Only art will save the world

Weekend in Switzerland

I took a trip to Switzerland over the weekend to visit friends and family. On the plane, and on most of my train ride home, I read One day by David Nicholls. As an introduction to the book, Nicholls includes a beautiful poem that stuck with me through the majority of my trip and what I found myself looking for when I took most of these pictures:

“What are days for?
Days are where we live,
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.”
Philip Larkin, Days

Black Keys

The Black Keys are an incredible band. All their albums have a peculiar feel to them that is unique to the particular that album but always true to the band’s original genre. I was introduced to their album Attach & Release back in 2009 and was absorbed by the band’s raw sound. So when I heard about their concert in London, I had no choice but to purchase tickets the moment they were released. Their new album, El Camino, came out towards the end of last year and I was sure the tour would be mostly about promoting their new album but I was pleasantly surprised when they started the show with Next Girl off of their album Brothers. And it got better and better from there. They played songs from Big Come Up all the way Rubber Factor and a few songs from El Camino.  The set list was incredible, the venue was absolutely beautiful and the live show sounded more refined than the tracks on their CD. I have no words for how good they were, how honest the sound was. If I could go back to any point in my life, the Black Keys’ concert would definitely be in the top five moments. I recommend everyone and anyone to go to their show if they get the chance, music like that can’t be lost and must be heard.

Thought

I realised humans are like marbles bought by a young engineer, someone who looked up to his father and his career. Daddy’s golden boy, he used to be, until he saw more than he had to see. So he buys this toy, right, with money he got from selling lemonade with this other boy. He’s all excited as he walks into the store and sees nothing but what he wanted and more. Everything spoke to him with might and soon enough, he saw the light. Green, black, yellow and blue, one colour for each of you. You’ll be played with and abused, only for you to feel completely used. Some of you will bounce some of you will fall, some of you will never feel anything at all. When you hurt you feel dead: to forget you must start drinking, it’ll keep your heart from sinking. A marble has a lot to be, it can be you, him or me. It has to be beautiful, free and live, giving everything it has to give. There’ll be a period in his life when the boy goes to business school, he’ll think drugs and alcohol are cool. He’ll smoke some weed, pop a pill or two, you’ll know he’s far too gone to look to you. Now’s your time to be, sitting in that box, trouble free. He’ll come back one day to move into his new home, he got an executive position at a firm in rome. He’ll find your box one last time, he’ll shake you for one lost time. He’ll laugh and reminisce, you were there when he had his first kiss. And suddenly, you seize to exist. You land in an old unopened box, you are forgotten, where did you disappear? That, in your mind, will never be clear.

Idiotic Wind

A love letter from the Sun for the Moon, hopeless romantics.

Dear Moon,
Well I promised myself I would refrain from writing you messages while you’re away as not to bombard you with stupid letters when you come back but I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye. This will be my only one, I’ll try to focus on my present and leave you to enjoy yours. I’m thinking about you and I miss talking to you a lot but I know you must be unbelievably happy and enjoying your time guiding people through the night. For now I have to keep my peace of mind. It’s difficult, though, because we won’t meet again until mid May, the next eclipse. It’s as if I’m stuck fifty years in the past since I’m writing you and you’re going to receive it only then, as if I’ve given it to someone to deliver to you or simply sent it with the post. Maybe that’s romantic or maybe it’s just child’s play, a way of slipping out of this reality for a bit, I suppose that would make the most sense with us. I guess that means I could be twelve, I could be eighty. I’m smoking a cigarette among the clouds, thinking about you, but simply to pass the time as the seconds tick by, bringing me closer to you. I watch over the earth and leave it to you in the night. I leave everyone with someone better when the darkness takes over. I only have to light a sky with light, you hold the hand of children afraid of the dark. I love you. I’m counting down the days. A hundred and twenty one days. See you soon.

Love,
Sun