August 30, 2010
Why I am a de facto semi-vegetarian
The short answer is The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I was already generally aware of the atrocious ways of meat production in the United States: extreme cruelty to animals; adverse impacts on human health and on the environment. But the gory details were sufficient to compell me to decide not to participate any longer. There is no excuse for treating chickens, pigs, and cattle the way large industrial producers do, and I refuse to be complicit in a system of which I so strongly disapprove. Indeed, it would be hypocritical of me to do otherwise.
That doesn't mean I am a full-blown vegetarian. Homo sapiens is one of those animals that eat other animals in order to survive, and I have no problem with that in principle. If you can serve me a piece of pork that was once a pig who was raised and killed in as humane and environmentally sustainable a way as is reasonably possible, I will happily eat it, mindful of the pig's sacrifice. But getting that kind of meat requires substantially more expense and effort than does the supermarket kind, and as of yet I haven't made the effort, so I have gone without eating the flesh of cattle, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and so forth.
Fish is another matter. Figuring out which kinds are produced in an environmentally responsible fashion also takes some homework, and they have faces, and they probably don't like suffocating any more than you or I would. But I am content to rationalize that a sardine does not have the cognitive functioning to realize how bad it's getting fucked before it ends up in a can. Maybe I will eventually change my position. For now, I need protein and don't want to depend solely on nuts and tofu. So I eat fish with some qualification.
One might say, let's see you kill and butcher that animal yourself, and then see how you feel -- as Michael Pollan did. I would certainly be willing to give it a try some day -- killing my own food sounds kind of cool, in fact. But for now I am a creature who lives in the suburbs, works in a city, and going hunting with my crossbow is not really a practical alternative. The idea is certainly not forever foreclosed, but for now I am content to allow someone else to kill my food animals for me.
Opting out of industrial meat has not required any difficult adjustments in my diet, because I was already eating a lot of vegetarian meals, rarely consuming red meat, and increasingly eating fresh and local food. I have had to renounce that Cambodian style noodle soup from a Cantonese place near my office, a delicious concoction made with sliced and ground pork as well as shrimp and egg noodles in broth probably made from ducks who undoubtedly fare no better than the pigs.
As for eggs, we generally buy the most local and ethically correct ones available, and willingly pay a premium over the industrial kind (think of it as insurance against salmonella poisoning courtesy of a mass producer in Iowa who churns out millions of eggs a week -- you don't need to be a Slow Food connoisseur to see the problem inherent in production on that scale). But that's also a tricky game, since what you read on the carton -- "cage free," for example -- may be bullshit. But I eat salads from a deli near my workplace, sometimes containing a hard-boiled egg about whose origins I know nothing. I am not a purist; I compromise. When I eat my kids' left-over pepperoni pizza, I peel off the pepperoni and eat it, unconcerned about the pizza being tainted with pepperoni residue. And maybe -- maybe -- when Thanksgiving rolls around I will say fuck it and partake of the turkey. We'll see.
The result of this modest dietary change is that I feel fine both ethically and physically. I like to burn a lot of calories running, and have kept on setting personal record times since quitting the meat. Over time, I suspect our family will be eating still more local and fresh, and adjusting our diet according to the seasons in New Jersey. The rest of the family might even phase out the industrial flesh consumption. For now, this is working well for me.
Posted by Professor B at 2:21 PM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2010
My happy transition to the Vibram FiveFingers
If you're a runner, then you've undoubtedly heard a great deal of hype about the barefoot/minimalist running movement. Like countless others, I read Born to Run and was intrigued. The prose style is so dreadful that I was tempted to quit, but forced myself to suck it up for the sake of the content.
For context, here's a quick running résumé. At 52 years of age, I have been running for about 23 years, but only casually for the first 20 -- about three times a week, four or five miles at an easy pace. In January 2008 I ran my first half marathon, and loved it so much that I ran a marathon in October 2008 and another in November 2009, the latter fast enough to qualify for Boston. At present I am not formally training for any event, and I run as much as I can in light of my substantial commute, work and family responsibilities -- about 120 miles per month.
After seeing some online discussions (at my local running club) about the Vibram FiveFingers miminalist foot-glove, I decided to order a pair. Scouring the web I found that my size was out of stock everywhere. It was clear that the VFF's Warholian 15 minutes are in full swing. Vibram can't make the damn things nearly fast enough to meet the demand, and one has to beware of scammers who have popped up selling counterfeit versions. I finally back-ordered some VFF Sprints from an outdoor gear place in Oregon, and they kept moving the shipping date back so that it took a full six months for mine to arrive at my door.
Under the influence of Born to Run, I had decided that rather than replacing my Mizuno Wave Elixir 4s, I would just continue to beat the cushioning out of them. They were pretty well-worn by the time I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon in May 2010 (in NY Marathon-qualifying time, thank you very much), and had over 500 miles by the time I put them aside.
Put them aside, because I ran out of patience while waiting on my VFFs and got what seemed to be the next best thing that was readily available: the Mizuno Universe 3 racing flat. The things are so light they might as well be made of paper. The soles and heels are scant enough to qualify this shoe as minimal. I took them out for a easy-pace ten-mile spin on day one, and felt only minor soreness in my calves the following day. I adopted these Mizunos as my full-time shoe and perhaps not coincidentally, started running faster. Have I changed my stride? I think so, but I don't know. I haven't consciously done anything radical.
At last, three days ago, the VFFs showed up. The first time I put them on it took some doing to get my toes into their individual -- whatever you call them, the counterparts of what we call fingers of a glove. But one learns quickly to become more toe-aware, and the VFF is a fascinating new sensation.
Now comes the potentially treacherous part. There are reports of a lot of people getting injured by transitioning too quickly into minimalist footwear, attempting too much too soon. Maybe I should have gone for a mile or two the first time out. But I like to run, so I went for five miles on a treadmill: the first three at an easy pace, the next couple moderately fast, the last .75 fast. It felt fine. I took the next day off, waiting to see if there were any ill effects. Experiencing none, I got on the treadmill again today for a 1-mile warmup followed by a 5-mile hill climb followed by a level half-mile to cool down, all at an easy pace. All good, and I was feeling strong the whole while. I plan on some more treadmill tomorrow, and will make my street debut the day after tomorrow for around 10 miles.
Thus it turns out that I have made a gradual transition into minimalism in three phases: (1) running in a conventional, fairly light shoe until it was beaten to hell; (2) running in racing flats full-time, then finally (3) running in the VFF. I should also mention that I am uncommonly fortunate and not prone to significant running injuries. But for me, this approach to VFF adoption seems to be working beautifully.
Posted by Professor B at 2:52 PM | Comments (0)
June 4, 2010
a Saturday morning run at South Mountain
running
feet and ground
through the damp spring air
infused with honeysuckle
Posted by Professor B at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)
April 9, 2010
Walking out on sesshin
I signed up for a sesshin, or retreat, at a place called the Zen Mountain Monastery upstate: a week of lots and lots of sitting in a formal and disciplined monastic setting. I wanted to experience someplace other than the one zendo which I have attended exclusviely since I started practicing, and be an anonymous face in a large crowd. I also wanted to hear what the teachers had to say, after being deeply impressed with a couple of talks that I had read online. Two people I know who had trained at ZMM encouraged me to go. One of the founders, now deceased, is regarded as a major figure in western Zen -- John Daido Loori.
[An aside for readers not familiar with Zen as practiced by most Western lay people: the core of the practice is sitting, or zazen -- seated meditation. It's important to sit every day, and it is likewise important to do intensive practice as often as your schedule permits: that is, all-day sittings, or zazenkai, and multi-day sittings, which we call sesshin or retreats. During these extended sittings there is no talking, reading, or fooling around with phones or computers. There are periodic breaks (sometimes barely adequate) in the zazen schedule for things like meals and sleep. The idea is to keep practicing around the clock. Sesshin tends to sharpen your skills and, ultimately, make you more acutely aware of where you are and what you are doing. This is also known as being awake. It can be said that Zen is for those who would dare to wake up.]
So I drove up to Mount Tremper, NY, on a rainy Monday afternoon, and sesshin began that night. The next day at about two o'clock in the afternoon I packed my bags and walked, deciding that this was not a fruitful use of my time right about now.
The place had about it a slight fragrance of psychopathy mingled with the incense.
My mattress was seriously fucked up, and made my back hurt. The ratio of showers to people was too low to expect more than one shower over the six days. The schedule was 3:55 a.m. rise, and lights out at 9:30, with a number of short breaks and only one one-hour break for all your rest and exercise. Breakfast and lunch were taken as formal oryoki, an extremely elaborate ritual involving lots of chanting and drumming and bells, folding and unfolding cloths and arranging bowls and utensils in a very particular way.
Maybe I gave up prematurely. I was uncomfortable and got but little sleep my one night there, and sleep deprivation has a pronounced negative effect on my mood (so it is for everyone, but I seem to do worse than most). My lower back ached, although not bad enough to be a crisis. There came a point in the oryoki ritual in which you put a bit of rice on the handle end of your little wooden spatula as an offering to your supernatural imaginary friend the Hungry Ghost. That's when I realized this was not for me. I deliberated over the next hour or so to give myself a chance to reconsider, but that was pretty much the turning point in which I said fuck this.
If this sesshin regime were a prison, Amnesty International would have something to say about the inadequate opportunities for sleep, exercise, exposure to the outdoors, and bathing. But it is by no means a prison. You go in on a purely voluntary basis for a limited time -- and although it is discouraged, you can get up and leave, as I did.
I packed my gear and took it out to the car as people were assembling in the zendo for the next round of sitting, following lunch. Drove down the driveway and found there was a gate that I was going to have to open in order to get out. When I got out of the car, I saw one of the monks walking towards me, and understood that I was going to have to speak to her. I had half-tried to tell myself, prior to escaping, that walking out and hitting the highway was going to be a satisfying act of self-liberation. But when I realized I was going to have to explain myself to someone, I felt a sheet of emotion extending from somewhere around waist level to above my eyes. She asked whether something had happened. I explained as best I could that this just was not for me, not now. She said, why did you come? I knew the question was not rhetorical. She wanted me to consider why I had come in the first place. Unable to recall any reason, I said it sounded like a good idea at the time. She tried gently to dissuade me from leaving, suggesting that I might try hanging around for the afternoon, talking to one of the teachers. I pictured myself re-entering the building with my baggage and re-installing myself in the room, and found the image intolerable. If she had said, come on, I will help you get your stuff back inside, it might have been a closer contest. I told her, as respectfully and tactfully as I could, the same things I just said here. I am attached to my bourgeois lifestyle, and have trouble tolerating a week with scarcely a shower and a bed so uncomfortable that it will take my back days to recover once I get home. She said, we could do something about the bed. I said, I am a wordly and unspiritual sort of dude for whom offering blobs of rice to supernatural beings is not the way I want to spend time that I could otherwise be with my wife and kids and cats. I said I understood that walking away from the commitment to stay till the end was not approved of, and could accept it if I was banned for life. She was perfectly gracious about it, and said on the contrary, I was welcome to come back and try again any time.
I was practically in tears as I drove away, because leaving was an anguishing decision, and I felt -- rightly or not -- a certain shame and humiliation from the failure. It took the rest of the week to process and get over it.
It isn't necessary to justify myself, but I am gonna do it anyway and state for the record that I am not a one who typically quits when faced with adversity or difficulty. I have done week-long sesshin a couple times before, with schedules that were perhaps not as grueling as this one, but certainly not leisurely -- and walking out was never under serious consideration. I have kept other tough commitments in this life, like training hard for 20 weeks to run a New York Marathon at a Boston-qualifying pace even when the last 10 kilometers were brutal.
So what happened here? I think this experience can be seen as analogous to a computer crashing under excessive load. Too many hats: father; stepfather; husband; computer programmer; professional court interpreter; distance runner; single-payer healthcare activist; ....Zen monk? Crash!
There is only so much you can do at a given point in your life. You can stretch the container pretty damn far, but we all must reach a limit at some point; then you have to choose between this and that, not both. Far be it from me to find fault with this style of practice. I might even go back and try it again some day, as the monk kindly suggested that I could. For now I belong on my mat at home and zendo, and in my supremely comfortable bed with wife and purring cats.
Posted by Professor B at 9:58 AM | Comments (0)