BUT, all that aside. I don’t think I LIKE gardening. Maybe I would if I had the whole day at home and that became a scheduled part of what I did: water, pull weeds, turn soil, pick at bugs, mulch, study sunlight, soil, and water needs…I would want to go all out, do it really well and really right. But I don’t like it enough to prioritize it into the little amount of time I have. The thought of learning about and planning for growing seasons feels overwhelming (much less the 10zillion other things I’d want to learn), not easy at all when viewed with the lifetime of other things I’d rather be learning or doing, or that require my attention.

I have so much respect for you garden growers. Truly. I don’t know how you fit your hobbies into your daily life at all. I am completely lost and cluttered and overwhelmed and barely one-thirding everything I am involved in.

I guess what I mean is, despite my desire to be all the things that gardening represents to me…the answer is just No right now. I’m not happy with that answer, but I have to face who I am right now as well. This isn’t what I want to learn right now. This isn’t what I want to prioritize.

I wrote this hoping it would help let go of the guilt about it…it hasn’t.

Well, I don’t know what I was thinking having both a happiness attempt AND reading more about food.

I feel so trapped underneath the weight of the way we do food in this country, this world. The fact that (until I have a lot of money) I cannot safely eat much of anything that isn’t influenced by factory farming (including many vegetables), unbelievable ethics practices, and well, corn and oil, is completely overwhelming. I can’t have a clue where my food comes from, most of it is total trash, completely stripped of its value to my body, which is why I have to take fiber pills a zillion times a day, and the rest of it is produced with sadistic slave labor. This is the case at KFC and nice restaurants alike. It is impossible to eat meat that is not factory farmed and didn’t live and die in horrible ways.

I already felt trapped enough in my life situation before reminding myself of these things, but I had to do it anyway. So now what? I never stopped being a vegetarian, so really spending the last couple of days crying about the billions of tortured animals just TODAY who are suffering the unspeakable to become dollar burgers and egg and bacon sandwiches only serves to remind me of horrors I can do absolutely nothing to change. I’m glad I reminded myself, but what good is any of it if I am unable to influence anyone to eat deliberately, be aware, and know that your choice is: absolute unspeakable cruelty in numbers that are nearly uncountable plus ecological destruction vs. my tongue likes it.

(I say this as a person who still eats cheese, and eggs maybe once a week. I know the packaging claiming cage free, vegetarian fed, blahblahblah is probably crap. I do pay a hell of a lot more for them, so I stupidly hope that means they are actually slightly better. But I definitely need to find a local provider for this.)

So much has been written about this subject that there is nothing new I could ever imagine adding. The problem is actually that I want to outline some of what has been said, but there are so many reasons for NOT eating meat, not eating meat under the current model of production in particular, that I have no idea where to begin.

Oh well, I’m going to ineffectually state some things anyway.

“We justify killing for the taste, but imagine if we tried to justify it for the sound, sight, or smell…”

It’s not just the animal welfare, although I think that should be beyond plenty reason enough.

• Human rights violations for the workers.
• Could feed the world with all the space, grain, water we take up giving to much less efficient meat-production (nearly 1/3 of the land surface is dedicated to livestock)
• Environmental destruction through air, water, and land pollution (it’s impossible to fathom the destruction we cause…I just, the more I read and see, I can’t believe this is possible.)
• Insane amounts of hormones and antibiotics given to these animals to keep them alive and fat long enough to kill them are affecting us and creating more powerful strains of virus that cause pandemics.
• Genetic engineering is doing the same, and these places purposefully create animals that cannot walk, reproduce, or even survive outside.
• Factory farming has almost entirely eliminated traditional farming, wiping out the little guy and the ability for consumers to choose. There’s no such thing as local anymore.
• Entire species are being wiped out due to overkill during fishing, including fishing for shrimp. We’re talking 90% of what’s pulled out of the water is NOT what was being fished for, but it all dies too and is tossed back in dying. You may think shrimp are not sentient and therefore ok to eat, but what about the 90% of everything else that depressurized, got sliced open, suffocated or drowned in the process?
• We are lied to by our government as to what is healthy and what is not.
• Top 3 killers of humans: heart disease, cancer, and strokes, are all connected to meat
• Breeds desensitivity to life in general, including other humans.
• The insane amounts of oil and gas used throughout the entire process.

Quotes I have liked recently:

• “Eating industrial meat takes an almost heroic act of not knowing, or, now, forgetting.”
• “Factory farming is not wrong because it produces meat, but because it robs every animal of every shred of happiness.”
• “I simply cannot feel whole when so knowingly, so deliberately, forgetting.”
• “People care about animals. I believe that. They just don’t want to know or pay.”
• “How much suffering will you tolerate for your food?”

And I haven’t even touched thinking about the HFCS issue. I mean, really! In my favorite bread! I can accept the responsibility for drinking so much Dr. Pepper, but in my attempts to have healthier BREAD I can’t even succeed.

And vegetables…oy. Trapped. I feel panicky and surrounded all the time. Knowledge and happiness are very difficult to reconcile.

ETA:

Another quote:

“To those for whom it sounds like a hard decision, the ultimate question is whether it is worth the inconvenience. We KNOW, at least, that this decision will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural america, decrease human rights abuses, improve public health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in world history.”

And in Food, Inc. the Walmart reps discussing their choice to go with more organics are very honest: It’s about money and the consumer has said they want to pay for this. We as consumers really do tell the companies what to do. But not with protests, with money.

I am doing a decent job of my happiness project, but it results in a disorganized scattering of waaaay too many notebooks and scraps of paper and Post-It notes. The problem is, even though I carry a zillion things with me everywhere I go because I am a bag lady, I never have the right notebook or folder with me at the time I need it. I think of an idea for the newsletter when I’m at the front desk. I hear a new word or song lyrics I want to look up when I’m driving. I think of the right wording for something when I only have my Lost notebook with me. The next time a bear rips off my arm, I’m getting a fake arm with a compartment that can hold ONE notebook and small pen.

I think I have a ridiculous solution that won’t work for anyone else but sounds crazy fun to me if I could manage it.

I need to make a list of everything in my life I’m wanting to keep lists of right now. So far, I have:
Daily delightful things
Positive R things
Food journal
Songs for R and other friends (I never make CDs because I can never find the random jottings of songs I wanted to use)
Books, music, movies I hear about that I want to look into more, or that I’d like to recommend on here maybe (this one is pretty broad; I haven’t figured out the natural focus of it yet)
Stuff I want to follow up on or learn about (words I heard but don’t know, my desire to learn ballet)
Stuff I want to expound on later for a blog posting or tweet, or to meditate on (quotes)

Currently, I keep notes on all these things, but they are scattered among many notebooks, making it impossible for me to track them or USE them. The delightful things often end up in the online delight blog, but usually not for several days after I wrote them down, which misses the point of experiencing those positive things as they occur.

The second step (after focusing that list of lists *squee!*) is to buy nearly identical notebooks but of different colors (Nice notebooks that I will WANT to write in, little hardback journals with colorful spines, probably.), one for each subject. Those are to be filed somewhere appropriate in the house.

The third step is to carry a purse-sized notebook everywhere I go. Only the one. This will require much mindfulness to not leave it sitting at home or at work or leave my bag anywhere. Maybe I could get a thigh strap to hold a notebook and pen and only wear skirts and scuba gear everywhere so I could access it easily. I want to keep THIS book basically unstructured with the exception of writing the date when I start the day.

The fourth step is the ritual. Choose a time every evening to sit down with the notebooks and transcribe into them from the general ledger notebook. (OMG, this is giving me chills of delight from when I was in accounting.) It feels like there is little point to writing all this crap down, taking all the notes I take, if I am not going to meditate on them ever again.

And the last thing is to remember I don’t have to write EVERYTHING down. If I have to let go of some things while I’m driving, well, there will be something else soon enough in the day if I am mindful. When I was in junior high and high school I had what was probably a minor form of hypergraphia where I literally had to write every little thought or word or sight down. It truly hurt to think of the eternal oblivion into which thoughts disappeared if they were not transcribed. I realized the problem and stopped writing anything down. Yes, one extreme to another. I will find that balance or I will not. In any case, it’s silly to deny my nature. I want to record things and read them later. It brings me joy. But to be healthy, I need to learn to let some of it go.

I have also found that I feel less stress with this stuff if I don’t FORCE myself to follow rules that don’t really have purpose. When doing the 365 project, much mediocrity was created by the simple fact that I didn’t have time to design a fantastic photo every single day. In addition, I added crazy amounts of unnecessary stress by staying up so freakin late to obtain perfection or by being wholly disappointed in the crap I finally had to post just to follow the rules. I gained SIGNIFICANT benefits from that project, and don’t regret a single moment of it, but it did teach me that it’s pretty unrealistic (for me, anyway) to think I will be able to truly obtain the “letting go” aspect of happiness that I’m going for if I subscribe to strict, unbendable rules. At the same time, to be me, I have definitely got to have some self-imposed structure or I just won’t do it. I really am about discipline. And about adding steps where there need be none. I love that.

I feel like what I’ve done so far has been worthwhile. Keeping the lists at all, even if disorganized, is giving in to doing what I love, and is not hurting anyone. I think if I can structure it according to the ways that feel natural for me, I could really gain a lot from trying it.

I also thought, in addition to, or even instead…keep the one notebook but then just transcribe it here, exactly as it was written, just because it’s interesting to see what was interesting that day all together. But then there’s that pressure to perform, so I probably won’t do that unless it’s a pretty cool eclectic list. We shall see on that one…

One of the most revelatory things I have learned (and really do believe) is that each person has a happiness threshold that they were basically born with. Knowing this frees me to do what I can with what I was given rather than consistently falling short of an unreachable goal. But knowing this is also disappointing. Turns out I can only be as happy as *I* can be. In fact, sometimes I suspect this “fact” is like how they’ve changed pants sizes to make Americans feel better.

I get similar mixed feelings about how brains are wired. When I first really started understanding physical brain anatomy as SUCH a limitation in truly happy relationships with other human beings, I was first delighted. Wow, assigning an inability to be thoughtful or considerate or conversational, etc. to science made accepting it so much easier. But over time, it’s gotten more depressing constantly having to chalk so much up to differences in brain construction. I try to be aware of what I should expect out of people, but having to lower my hopes and expectations more and more to accommodate the lack of thought on the part of others is really becoming a drag. It feels completely the opposite of pursuing happiness.

Along those lines, I know that the only thing I can control in the whole world is my own behavior. Act how you want to feel. This makes sense and brings peace on occasion. But then it just feels as depressing as the brain thing. No matter how much I love someone or they love me, I still can never expect them to treat me with the consideration and understanding that I want (yes, yes, nor can they expect me to do likewise, surely). They likely won’t even have one iota of understanding for why their behavior makes me feel insulted, hurt, let down, or rejected. I can talk all I want but if they don’t think so, then what’s to change? Only me. It always always always comes down to me. And I get really worn down being one of the few people working on it.

I don’t want to be a “live together or die alone” person in an “every man for himself” world. But wish in one hand…

My point is this: A lot of things about pursuing happiness require acceptance of really shitty things. Pursuing happiness isn’t always a happy pursuit.

I’m glad a few of my friends are on this trip with me, though. Happiness is a struggle we are sharing *hug* Now back to project delight to log my delightful things for the day…

OOooooh! I feel like Paris Hilton!

First off, they never told anyone about it. WTF is that about? We didn’t KNOW we weren’t going to receive it, so we didn’t know we needed to go out of our way to get it.

Second, if I paid for it, I should get it delivered. I don’t care how many idiots complained about receiving it; they can throw the damn thing away if they don’t like it! How does it make sense to blanket-ban all libraries just because a few people don’t want it? Are we living in the 50s?? I should NEVER have to go out of my way to GET something I already PAID for. The bitches should be the one doing the work. It’s a hell of a lot easier to toss a mag you don’t want than it is for me to find my subscription number, call a customer service line, and ASK for something that’s already mine.

But god forbid these holier-than-thous shut just their own eyes. They want to make sure everyone else’s eyes are shut too.

And that doesn’t even address how easily companies give in to this kind of but-who-will-think-of-the-children pressure nowdays.

Grrrrrr……………..

So what is the deal? Why Elvis and Wal-Mart? Marketing-wise this might make sense. Wal-Mart is the King of Low Prices. I didn’t check, but there might have been a special on peanut butter and bananas. And you can buy bedazzlers there. Nah. Can’t be it. So…what the hell was Elvis doing at Wal-Mart on a Sunday night?

I just go thru stages of not wanting to be online.

So there.