My wife made boiled eggs, I looked at them and just realized how much I miss (probably hundreds of) rituals in relation to SAD diet. I have been mostly raw vegan (100% for a while, now 90% or so) for a year and a half - still learning about the diet. But, often I realize how much I loved some of those rituals - different food prepared in a different way, tools used, process, smells and satisfaction in the act of consuming.
I now realize, deep inside, that the taste of fresh mulberry cannot be replaced with anything processed. I am learning new routines with raw food, not always doing the best thing (I gained some weight from dates, not enough activity), but gradually becoming a different person. Everything is changing. My view of the world, my habits. But I sometimes can't help desperately missing the old world, the one I knew so well, where I was an expert for my kind of life...I loved natural bread, used to go to local bakeries in my native country early in the morning (after parties, at 2-3 am) to get some great smelling fresh natural bread, or some local specialties. I loved poppy seed strudel and ate a ton of it as a kid. I used to hunt, eat wild animal meat, loved it.
Now all that is gone. What's more, nobody can give it back to me, not even I myself. I just simply KNOW too much now. I know more about my body, and cannot believe that I have spent most of my life not knowing basic facts about myself, and I had always considered myself educated and intelligent (I will think about that twice now).
I do have beautiful new experiences with natural food and some habits that come with it. This is a much better world, but my life has been modeled around a totally different set of practices, and when I look into my past, I see it from a totally different perspective. All customs of my nation, all great moments around events - everything is going through a filter now. Good feelings stay in memory, but my whole history has to be revised. This is happening spontaneously, on the go, but sometimes I have moments where I realize the magnitude of change, and feel a little robbed. Also, I cannot share this with any "normal" people, it would be very hard to understand the feeling I am talking about.

Building new habits in relation to the natural food is rewarding and I only regret not starting much earlier in my life. I will never give up on natural food and everything that goes with it, I don't even have to worry - I do everything consciously, and my brain would not let me do otherwise. So, I am stuck with this new life

...but what do I do with million memories?



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2011 01:49AM by rab.

"...but what do I do with million memories?"

I say, keep em! They're fine, they're wonderful, they are just what they are. Your new experiences will become your memories someday. These will perhaps be even better. Different maybe, but that's OK.

You know what it reminds me of? - "Matrix". I sometimes feel like the traitor in the Part I who gets to live whatever kind of life he wants in the Matrix in return for betraying his friends. He consciously chose a fake life, artificial one, so he does not have to worry. I think that a lot of people actually do that, consciously or subconsciously - they just don't want to know and worry.
Please let me go back, but so that I DON'T know what I know now. Let me unlearn everything I have read about the human bodies and their diet. Let me be ignorant and happy..."until I get sick", say you. Can't you just remove the "sick" part? I want to go back, eat poppy seed strudel forever and never get sick. No can do? Shame.

I know what you mean, sometimes I wish I could eat anything, but everytime I consider going back to former diets it always feels like I'm considering suicide - a very slow and painful suicide.

Boy do I know what you mean.
My ritual for years was settling down to a pizza and a 12 pack while watching old tv sitcoms.
But....I dont miss it at all knowing how unhealthy it was.

Vinny

rab,

Fellow [I'm guessing]Slavic person here: poppy seed pastries are "in the blood" as they say, but the most unprocessed foods are deeper still in our unconcious cultural memory. I do find it difficult, especially at holidays featuring ethnic rituals, to reconcile them with my new way of living, and its propulsion of me, psychically, away from those oldest aspects of my identity, the food-related customs and behavior I learned at my babas' bended knees. For me, it has helped to understand that, just because I am not participating in my native culture this way, I am not a traitor to my roots. After all, my people immigrated to another country under duress, and were required to discard a lot of their ways out of pragmatism. And they survived with their identities intact. I will, too. Thus, I do not feel that I have been robbed of something of value to me, because the best aspects of the broader cultural traditions and values represented in part by food rituals--the happy times with family and ethnic peers--remain part and parcel of my self-knowledge. These are things that contributed to my becoming who I now am. And who I now am is taking a different path, that's all. What rituals have resulted in "me" cannot be taken away as experiences, and their beneficial effects persist. Humans are creatures of dynamism, one good attribute of our being sentient; they can alter their behavior at will, and choose how they feel about their behavior. I know you are big on the idea of our instinct, rab, but culture and its rituals are not instinct, but a learned thing that can be changed. The change can be agonizing, but ultimately, it is another opportunity to refine your relationship with your core self and better define what you do and do not value. I wish you peace in working through this process; it's a continuing one for me, as well

Tamukha, we have a lot in common Thanks for understanding

The diet is not the only thing I have learned browsing the Internet for the last 12 years...I have learned some things about science also. There are other things that are not known and understood widely (like Tesla's inventions, the true nature of electricity and a lot more). So, my view of the Universe has changed also

Oh, rab, you're welcome