Posted by Mike
(here)
When I was 19 or so, I would accompany my older brother to these music festivals where his band would perform. They were popular locally so there was usually quite a crowd. These events were usually outdoors, in the evening, under the stars, with fires burning, dancing, drink, weed, incense, so forth. If it were the 60's, you might call the attendees "hippies". But it was a cool scene, at least superficially, suggesting freedom and bliss and love and unity and so on. There were tables with what seemed like endless vegan dishes. And no one asked for a dime! Free food, free drink, free love. Then why did it make me so uneasy?
To begin with, everyone looked emaciated. The guys were all uber thin, drowning in their tshirts and beards, with easy, tired smiles etched into their gaunt faces. Most of their shirts were decorated with peace symbols, and just in case you missed it all you had to do was look at their hands, which were perpetually locked in the peace sign formation. The whole place was shrouded in this weird, burnt-out tranquility. When I looked around I didn't really see it all as advertised, I mostly just saw weakness.
It wasn't so much that those people were interested in peace, it's just that they were totally incapable of fighting
And that's an important distinction to make. Had the place been overrun by angry toddlers, the hippies wouldn't have stood a chance! And the whole scene was a wonderful smokescreen (no pun intended) to conceal this weakness and instead present it as a virtue. I couldn't really articulate that to myself back then, but I certainly picked up on it. And it always made me uneasy.
What they all had in common was their vegan diet. It's true that they were also weed smokers and drinkers, but so were my friends and they were all pretty robust lol.
It's unfair of me to compare those events and people with the vegans you know and spend time with, but that's what it immediately reminded me of. I guess I'm trying to just describe my experiences to hopefully make my position more understandable.
All my early health guru heroes were vegans and herbalists. Dr Schulze. Gary Null. Dr Christopher, etc. All I had to do was cleanse my body of the poisons I'd put in there, and replace them with healthy, plant based nutrients they told me. So simple, so easy. It made perfect sense to me, and I was completely convinced it would work. I
knew. Then why didn't it work for me? Oh I know, I would say to myself, I did x wrong, or y, or z. I would try again, only this time be even more dedicated to the details. And then it would fail me again. I did this countless times.
Meanwhile I would wolf down a burger or a steak in between these attempts, ignoring how good they made me feel while planning my next herbal cleanse and vegetarian plan. Finally I had to admit that the meat made me feel much healthier and energetic. But it took me years to accept that!! I so desperately wanted to be a vegan. And sometimes I still do. More for the animals than me.
And over the years I would periodically revisit the diet. I would go to my local healthfood store and talk with some of the vegan workers there, looking for guidance. And they all looked like the people at the music festivals all those years ago. The guys were gaunt and weak, usually with those enormous , plate-sized tribal things in their ear lobes, and the women were sloppy and fat and heavily tattoo'd ( clearly doing the twinkie version of the vegan diet). And so I began to associate the diet with a certain type of person, fairly or unfairly, and I drifted even further from it.
I feel best when I eat meat *and* veggies. And fruits. I will happily testify to the remarkable boost I get from my fruit smoothies, but if I just do fruit or veggies exclusively, I wilt. I wish it wasn't so. A vegan diet appeals to me in every way but has failed me time and again in practice. Ive just accepted finally that this is who I am, ya know?