Quibbles With Life Experience: Veganism, Sobriety & Piety

What is it to be good?

A fundamental question that has directed my life for a long time. I guess this is innate to a human being.

Taking it to extremes, I guess led me to obsess about different aspects of my life. I opted for a vegan diet for four years because of this. Why? Because I see myself as unable to kill a cow with my own hands, or even see it be done. Now I find myself eating meat and eggs again and I feel a disconnection within me. I am unable to empathise with that [death of an animal] experience because I do not want to think about it.

Here is a perfect example of how I have driven myself somewhat mad in the pursuit of trying to live a life of perfection. It is something that I struggle with now. Trying to find a balance between desire and ethics. Wanting to live freely, free from overanalysis, but also do things that align with a set of principles. Principles are important. Living a good life is important too.

I guess it is why I find myself reading the most fundamental of texts on this: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Only about 20 pages in. I pray I finish the book.

I arrive at the question of God. What does he want for me? I refer to the Bible, to examine if there are specifications towards what he wants for us.

It drives you crazy though, trying to find this right answer. Trying to find this right way of being. Trying to do anything just seems so unbelievably difficult, yet I find solace in having evidence that I am a good person. Perhaps it is because from the day we were born the notion of good and bad, heaven and hell is rammed down our throats. To what extent is that reality true?

As a human I am aware of conscience. Is self-judgement an inherent element of our humanity? For a while I believed that heaven and hell were just states that we prescribed to ourselves for the things we have done in our lives.

I think about the state that animals live in and can I forgive myself for contributing to their torture and slaughter?

I arrive at these states of deep deep contemplation where everything loses all type of sense and I arrive at a dead end of confusion.

There is a point where logic arrives at emotion, where our emotions hold more truth than the rational truth, am I right?

I used to think I had all of the answers and I don’t. Life is evolutionary, and the principles I hold today may change tomorrow or in twenty years time.

I just feel so confused. Coming out of this time where I was so fixed on my views. That I wanted to live in the middle of nature in Mexico, eating fruits, sober and meditating and practicing yoga. Now I find myself applying to jobs in London, eating meat & dairy, loving white wine, wanting to socialise, party and actually finding meaning in this too.

Then I look at politics, I look at the state of the UK. Thinking ‘will I be safe as a woman living in London? Having to get the tube late at night or walk the roads by myself? Is London and the UK really as bad as they say it is?’ Fundamentally, I am so scared of society, of cities. I was even scared living in Mexico towards the end. Scared of, ultimately, being alone in this world, wherever I go.

I guess this is why we believe in a God. When we are in these moments of complete confusion, feeling entirely lost, alone in the desert, You think to yourself that there must be something else here, there must be some force, there must be some meaning, no? You are in the abyss and maybe we just really cannot face that we are alone. But then serendipitous things, good, magical, mystical things happen in our day to day lives that reinstall some faith in us. That the world is not just this bleak place.

Maybe God is both good and bad, this greater force. How I would like to know more.

But goodness oh goodness how lost I feel, to be returning to a way of life that I renounced, that I denounced for so long. How odd it feels, how far away I feel from the girl who left it all to go with her dog to Mexico. How long ago it feels that I was riding my scooter without a helmet watching the sunset every evening, watching the surf, taking my time, cultivating my fruits.

I wonder how I will look back on all of this? I wonder what this all means for me?

I have been hard on myself, thinking how foolish I have been. But I guess I have been living. I just hope that I am not betraying that part of me. This newer version wants to feel safe, grounded, with her people, does not want to struggle.

I pray that I make decisions that serve me well. That I find that peace, I find that balance, I find that ‘flourishing’ - a word that appears in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. εὐδαιμονία - ‘eudaimonia’

Thank you Lord.