Vanity

There are many reasons to pay close attention to what we eat. The food we eat nourishes or stresses our organs, purifies or makes our blood toxic, gives or drains energy, and causes clear or cloudy thoughts. Furthermore, when we eat processed food, we tend to put on weight. Our clothes fit tighter, and our reflected image falls short of the ideal we hold of ourselves. Being obese is detrimental to our health and has been known to cause heart disease and diabetes and is the fifth leading risk for global death¹so obviously having a slender figure promotes good health. But what of the satisfaction we take in seeing the number on the scale gradually descend, or being able to fit into smaller clothes? These benefits are imaginary, and whereas the physical changes we experience are healthy, I don’t believe our egocentric inner monolog is.

When we are dissatisfied with our bodies for reasons other than health, our inability to accept our physique is based on the false pretext that women must look like super models in order to be desirable or even acceptable. The vacuum left where our self-esteem should be often seeks external approval to assuage feelings of inferiority. And so we become vain. In Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner Mind, he describes naturalness as thoughts or actions arising from nothingness as opposed to from others’ thoughts or expectations of us². A desire to be slender caused by others’ ideas is not natural; slenderness as a side effect of eating only when we are hungry is natural. In other words, a desire to be skinny to please others is neurotic and unhealthy. This particular neurosis is vanity.

Vanity used to mean attempting something futile, and was distinct from pride in the biblical list of deadly sins. In contrast, vanity is a synonym for pride in modern parlance. Both Proust and Nietzsche have written about vanity in its earlier form. For them the vain seek approval from others because they don’t measure up to their ideal self. Vanity requires lies – we hope to deceive others about our shortcomings so that they reflect back to us a more pleasing image of ourselves. For Proust, when we are truly secure in our own value we are modest rather than vain. Nietzsche would have agreed: for him people who have confidence in their own value can’t even understand vanity: “the problem is to imagine creatures who try to awaken a good opinion of themselves which they themselves do not hold – and thus do not deserve – and yet subsequently come to believe this good opinion themselves”³ Nietzsche. 

In many cases, we may be disappointed with ourselves for sound reasons: we may see ourselves as greedy, as selfish, or as lazy. Seeking another’s opinion to sway ourselves away from these views is indeed a vain, futile attempt to assuage our ego. But the case of body image is different; not only is it vain to seek others’ approval to change our view, the view itself is not well founded. So, if we acknowledge that our lack of confidence is based on a false premise, we would not require external affirmation to overcome it. In fact, the problem is not our bodies, and it is not our vanity or pride. It is our inability of unwillingness to discern between unrealistic media ads and natural human physiques.

In the end, the answer is to be natural instead of complicated. This is not easy, but it is the healthiest path. Again, I’ll quote the ancient Zen saying: “drink when thirsty, eat when hungry,” all else is contrived, unnecessary neurosis.

¹http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/

²Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.  Weatherhill, Inc: New York: 1995. Pages 107-110

³Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Penguin: 1990. Page 198

I will start by apologizing for my long absence, dear readers. Though you may not be many, I can only hope that you will find this new post. During my hiatus from writing I completed the one month Cambridge Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults – or the dreaded CELTA. Those of you who have undertaken such an intensive teaching course will be familiar with the sleepless nights, and chronic ingestion of caffeine and sugar to sustain productivity. It was intense, but it was short, and I have since launched my teaching career. Starting any new career doesn’t leave whole lot of time for blogging, which is why it has taken me so long to sit down and write!

When I started this blog, I was living in Brussels where my boyfriend is working. I am back in Cork again now, but I had a lovely visit to Belgium before diving back into the realities of day to day life in Ireland. Mick, my boyfriend, could attest to the negativity with which I viewed my CELTA lifestyle. I felt bloated, my skin was spotty, my hair stringy, my energy low, and my moods inconsistent. So, before my last ice-cream sundae in Brussels, I resolved to change my ways. The pendulum has swung back and I am now practicing a macrobiotic diet and lifestyle, and feeling great

The diet is simple: whole, local, fresh, mostly cooked foods, accented by Japanese seasonings and pickles such as umeboshi plums, miso, gomasio, and sea vegetables. The lifestyle component involves daily exercise, meditation, and a full body hot towel scrub, twice daily. I have to say I feel amazing. I have tons of energy, and my sleep patterns mirror the daily rise and set of the sun. I am back to a steady, consistent frame of mind, and a clearer perspective of the world around me. Happy days!

I have been reading Nietzsche, Proust, and Suzuki; posts on these great thinkers, as well as my first recipe post, will follow!

Warmest wishes to the inhabitants of the nebula!

Rules, Addiction, and Choice

"So often, when we simply stop for a moment and clearly see the nature of our destructive patterns, the brightness of our awareness causes them to dissolve - without a struggle."¹ Paul Pitchford

I know there is a problem with my lifestyle when I start making promises to myself. I create little sets of rules that I think will govern my future actions.These rules always seem to fail, as Proust predicted: "our farthest reaching resolutions are always made in a short-lived state of mind."² This axiom is evident in my own life. The example that comes to mind is cigarettes. I have never been a smoker for long, although the habit has taken hold of me a few times in my life for short time-spans. These periods were characterized with self debasing thoughts pushing me to quit smoking. During one such period in the summer of 2010, I was smoking about six cigarettes per day. I would wake up every morning and do some stretches and then a short meditation.  During this meditation, I would repeat to myself over and over again - I will not smoke today, I will not smoke today - in a feverish, brow furrowing mantra. By around three o'clock each day I would cave and have a cigarette. So in my case, the state of mind that allowed me to make my resolution lasted at most 8 hours.

After a few weeks of this cycle, I realized the futility of my neurosis and post-poned the date of my smoking cessation to some benign future date. Until one evening, while on holidays in Spain, I met two elderly Irish couples who fervently urged me to quit smoking, citing the numerous friends they'd lost to cancer as a reason to never smoke again. They insisted so intensely that I put out my cigarette and quit. The reason I was now able to act on my wish to quit smoking, which had previously been no more than an obsessive fantasy, is that I saw clearly what a destructive habit it was. I went through the process of withdrawal and craving, but each time I had a craving, I made the choice not to smoke. I will admit that I smoke occassionally now, after a few pints, but it's no longer a habit in my daily life. Which brings me to another of Proust's ideas, "however much one may savour one's poison, when one has been forcibly deprived of it for any length of time, one is bound to be struck by how restful it can be to do without it."³ Abstinence from our addictions creates space in our minds to imagine a life without access to the substance to which we are addicted. I have learned that neurotic obsession with our addictions does not provide a respite, rather it strengthens the addiction by constantly bringing our attention to the thing we would like to avoid.

Abstinence is instrumental in overcoming obsession. But rather than creating rules and practicing future actions in my mind, I will focus my energy on creating a clear state of mind that will allow me, as Pitchford put it, to see the nature of my destructive patterns. In other words, rather than thinking about my problems, I will live them. As the zen master Shunryu Suzuki said, "when the problem is a part of you, there is no problem, because you are the problem itself [...] to solve the problem is to be part of it, to be one with it."⁴ I interpret his message to mean that dealing with our problems through our actions each moment is itself not a problem - it is life. Conversely, when we over-analyze our problems we become distraught because we have lost touch with our innate ability to live through adversity. Each moment is fresh and new, if we are present in each moment, we have the power to make choices that are right for us. If we live in this way, we will do what is right for us and there will be no problem. There is an ancient zen saying: "eat when hungry, drink when thirsty." That is all we need to know.

So if I am to take space from sugar, I need to stop obsessing about it. Instead, I must practice being present, so that when faced with the choice whether or not to indulge in sweets, I have the presence of mind to decide what is right for me. I'd like to suggest that in some situations, eating sugar might be okay since avoiding sugar can be socially awkward and even destructive. It might be right to have a bite of a piece of cake at a birthday party, or perhaps try a bite of some baked goods that someone has lovingly prepared. In effect, the problem is not sugar, it is the obsession with it, which may be quelled by complete abstinence, but can also be dealt with through meditation and increased awareness.


References:
¹ Pitchford, Healing with Whole Foods, 613
² Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, 154
³ Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, 197
⁴ Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, 82

Dieting websites make me crazy. Today I looked at a ton of websites advising me to give up sugar, which would be the answer to all my troubles. Giving up sugar is an intimidating, anxiety inducing monster of a task. So what did I do after subjecting myself to the torture of scrutinizing my lifestyle? I ate three huge majool dates and a few teaspoons of a honey hazelnut butter mix. I'm pretty sure that websites about sugar addiction should not be this apt to promote anxiety, and so the goal of this blog is to have the opposite effect.

Anyway, if you've never experienced sugar cravings then there's little hope of me making you understand how persuasive they can be. On the other hand, if you are familiar with sugar cravings then there's no need to explain, you know how hard it can be to resist them. Since I am not currently in the throes of craving, I can see clearly that almost immediately after I eat something sweet I feel terrible. On many levels. First I start to feel tired and then my mind becomes very cloudy and I find it difficult to focus. A few days after incorporating sugary foods into my diet, I notice that my clothes fit a bit tighter than usual, and I don't have enough energy to exercise. Eventually I begin to feel so ashamed of myself that I decide to swear off sugar forever. For the next few weeks I usually make good on my promise. It seems that when things are going great, and my clean running body has lots of energy, that I start to slip. I tell myself that I can handle a bit of sugar, and a little soon turns into a lot. That pretty much sums up the cycle of cravings I associate with sugar.

The purpose of this blog is to document my journey with food and provide some healthy satisfying recipes that won't take you on the sugar roller coaster. These recipes will follow. Also, though, I will have a look at some Zen and other teachings that help motivate me along the way. I practice Zazen, seated meditation, which helps me focus my mind and creates space between my thoughts and actions. A few seconds of insightful reflection before acting on an impulse can give a person the space to transform their lives. So I will explore how meditation helps me slowly achieve balance in my nutritional and emotional life.

My goal is not to swear off sweets forever; it is to achieve a healthy balance that minimizes intake of sugary foods to a point that allows me to achieve physical and emotional balance.