social difficulties

There's no doubt that the social side of practicing certain diet things is the very hardest thing. As a family man, I find myself making compromises all the time now. I'm coming to the point where I don't know where I can go with this anymore. From fasting while I was working some months back, to going back to raw veganism with some cooked or processed products, I find myself focusing more and more on the true reasons behind things, rather than concerning myself over what I have eaten, or not eaten. The deep Spirit of things has always been my motivation, and it does not abandon me if I eat. My ideal would be to be in a situation where I can practice again some forms of deep fasting and contemplation, but perhaps that time is not now. I know that my inner senses increase in clarity hugely when I fast or eat very little.

For the time being, I continue to be vegan - something I won't go back on, in the same way that I became veggie many years ago - with an emphasis on raw food. I don't think that I'll add to this blog much, until I do a proper fast again. On the other hand, I understand also the necessity of silence in certain things and practices, and while this blog has been useful to get out certain tensions in my psyche, I also truly believe that not speaking about certain things is really quite important. All I can say again, is that this food thing, and the elimination of foods, unleashes many things that lie buried in the psyche, which is probably why most of us choose not to go without certain foods, etc. I see some characters who've adapted to a food-free lifestyle very easily, and they say it's really quite easy, but I also see that they've put their work in, perhaps not even in this life.

an emotional ride

Recently I was looking at cooked food and thinking to myself how horrible it seemed. I'd been on mostly raw stuff for quite  a while - and so cooked food just seemed really weird to me and I felt like I didn't want any part of it. Distorted energy.

But then I hit some emotional things in my life, where I lost my equanimity. Suddenly, I started to really feel hungry for cooked stuff. I realised that it wasn't for physical reasons, but entirely emotional. However, I went with the flow, and so have had a fair bit of bread and a cooked meal.

I've noticed how much easier it is to be entertained by nonsense when on cooked food. This might seem like a strange thing to say. But with the senses slightly dulled, it's easier (in some ways life is easier!) to just go around doing stuff in an unconscious fashion. Being on raw food is a big thing really. For me personally, I've found any form of entertainment to be an uninteresting thing when I'm not on cooked food. We humans like to be entertained, we like distraction from our internal sense of unease. But while fasting, or eating raw, the emotions have less space to manoeuvre. It's strange how society is  based around entertainment and distraction. Food obviously plays a huge part in that.

I don't find it difficult to just sit in a chair and contemplate, maybe look out of the window for a long time. That might seem weird. On the other hand, a part of me after a while wishes that I had a warm feeling toward entertainment, but I don't find it interesting really - apart from comedy in TV and film I suppose! Well, I do find it interesting, but I have to be pumped up on cooked food to find it interesting! A bit like someone who has to be drunk to enjoy something he knows he won't enjoy - perhaps a rubbish film his friends are dragging him along to. This guy then has a few drinks at the bar before commiting himself to something he wouldn't usually enjoy. Maybe most parties are based around this - get by by getting drunk!

So anyway, this testing process goes on. It's an emotional ride.