Being Vegetarian

Sometimes I ask myself why I am vegetarian. I question the effect that it has on my body. My mum is South African and when I think about the ideal diet I can’t help but think about how meat might help me. I think about the protein of steak and eggs. How when I was in what I believed and still sometimes believe to be the peak physical shape that I was in I feel that I am missing out on my mainly plant based diet. At university for a time when I was struggling with money I was turning to dairy products for calcium and energy. Though I swear off of eating eggs on their own or as part of a dish I was drawn to eating cheese with bread. There was something survival based about that. I think about the scene in 1917 when the two soldiers are on a farm and they use the milk left by a cow for energy. Their is an image in my mind of the cows maternal instinct to feed its calf and how the fables of the past often refer to children being raised by wolves. The idea of a child surving by sucking on the breast milk of another animal when their mother is not there. This is the idea when I don’t have access to the food in my mums shelves back at home. It’s an idea of survival to live off of the discounted cheddar that comes in packets that are mainly made for that of packed lunches. Bars that are only a little better packaged than that of the baby bells targeted for children. I pair it with bread that it on discount I often think about the time when I paired it with bagels that were being sold on discount for 90p. This saver meal kept me going for a few days. Enough energy to get me to work were I would eat vegan food on my shift or keep me going until I could use the last of my rice and pasta for an evening meal. There is a guilt that sits with me when I try to enjoy this food. Though sometimes I wonder how my body would look and feel has I stuck to the diet of meat and dairy that I used to have. I compare myself in my mind as I have a shower. I work out often as a form of habit to battle the depression that seems to seep in when I don’t. I don’t do it for the aesthetic side of things but one can’t help to be inclined to that thought process. I am not overtly strong but nor am I weak. My muscles are lean and my skin tight to them. There was a period of time when I grew self conscious of myself and worried that when I looked in the mirror I was weakening or a shell of the man that I used to be. That is my thought process. It’s still toxic. I grew up around boxers and working men. My mother was a fitness instructor. My uncle a boxer. I was a lifeguard for years, boxed and have always had an active lifestyle even in my leisure activities of boxing, basketball and extreme sports such as BMX and skateboarding. I was having these thoughts of self recession around the time of halloween and summer. In the summer I hadn’t eaten much and to work out it almost seemed like a self punishment. I would be burning more body fat that what I could afford to spend because from previous knowledge I didn’t have the funds to acquire the food needed to refill the body energy that had been produced for a work out. I didn’t want to be skinny ripped. I didn’t want to work out and rise to my feet again with a head rush feeling as though I was about to faint. I had done that enough times to know that it was bested to reserve my energy. Near the end of summer I was getting ready for a new job. I had to wear a smart white shirt and trousers. The only shirt that I could find was a tight, slim fitting one that I had got with my partner as a set form M&S. I don’t mind wearing women’s clothing. It was a nice fit. I came out to my garden where my friend and his friend was sat, they looked at me and said that I looked really good. In that time I felt it. As time went on Halloween came around and I was wearing the same shirt again. It was part of our costume for the night. Me and my friends had decided to go as the characters from reservoir dogs, so white shirts were a must. We were at house party sat on the counter tops of a kitchen when I was talking to someone and my house mate said that he needed muscles like mine. He said it to a girl. She looked over for a moment and then carried on talking. It was strange. I didn’t think that I had muscles anymore. I compared myself to other men in society. Anyone that I deemed bigger or more aesthetically pleasing than myself. Maybe it was because I hadn’t been eating properly that these insecurities had set in, either way they had. Though I probably had the most energy than what I can ever remember at the start of my vegetarian diet, I at the time also had the money to back it up with takeaways and food in abundance. Now I compare myself to others that have the needs and means to make themselves look like Greek gods. I forget about my situation and my own worth. It’s a vain analogy though one that is true. That same friend tells me how he wants to look like me. He wants to dress like me and have my hair. My face etc. I don’t see why a lot of the time. I often find myself boring. Fake. Unnatural. Often beating myself down. I don’t talk about it to people. I don’t see the reason to. On nights out my friends say that I’m the man though do not know how much I respect the people that tell me the same thing as what they might want to hear themselves. I do not say anything I observe quietly. Smiling at the awkwardness of the compliment. It’s as simple as that. This chapter holds more than just dietary requirements but also ethics, masculinity, self image and self respect. I often question everything that I put into my body. The masculinity of it all. The strength of my character and my mind. Weakness is something that I can not tolerate in myself so I try everything that I can to push it out. I try; writing, painting, talking, reading, fucking, smoking and working out. I try everything that I can to feel strong again yet still feel weak. I worry about money, religion, my mental peace and god knows what else that can fall under the sun.

I think about wisdom and knowledge often thinking that the prior falls shorter the more the later increases. There is wisdom in naivety, or so I believe anyway. I find the lack of technology to be the greatest strength to humanity I am always relieved when my phone dies and only ever rely on my laptop for creative outlets when I want to document my writing or my musical interests. I use my phone and laptop as recording tools. Save spaces of storage. A contrast of interests I accept that. I try to walk the thin line between hypocrisy and practicality often falling short of either one. I am Johnny Cash walking that line that he sings of in his ballads. That torment of society. The wanting of equality for all but failing to sometimes see the other side of every coin that is thrown into the air. I stare into my eyes in a mirror and curse vanity. I wish for simplicity but look for complications. This is why I write. I want silence but wish to talk to the page that my pen connects with. I want loneliness but compassion. Independence but understanding. This is the purpose of my green book and the poetry that I write. The want of freedom but also of self regulation. My idea of smoking for societal interactions. The need to keep myself addicted to something because otherwise I would be dangling free on an unknown piece of string, like a surfers connection to a wave I just try to go with the flow of it all. I want happiness but find my comfort in my self adapted depression. Woe is John for the person that is seen to be ‘The Man’ in other peoples eyes. The tormented. The Anchor to the Untethered Soul. The title to the poem that I once wrote, to the acclaim of my friends a video that I can no longer watch back agin with friends though love to watch on my own. The compassionate narcissistic is the name of another one that I wrote which in my mind seems to be the perfect one to end this paragraph on. The Greeks would be proud of this enigma is what I joke to myself in my mind as I write.