Month: November 2018 (Page 2 of 2)

               This project has impacted me in several manners. For several weeks, I followed the vegetarian diet very strictly and realized that it was difficult in some ways to get enough protein when eating in dining halls because of the lack of control over meal planning. I found it was becoming challenging to meet nutritional needs while eating vegetarian because of my other dietary restrictions including the avoidance of gluten. However, I continued to limit any meat intake to once a day only three times a week and every time I ate meat it was a very small portion. I realized how meat does not need to be the center of a meal and started talking to family members and friends. This is where I realized the power of conversation and communication. I emailed several recipes to my family members and many said that they planned on trying out the recipes. I spoke with many friends about eating vegetarian and though some were initially adamant that eating meat was important to their diets and my diet as an athlete, eventually they questioned whether meat consumption is necessary. I led people to question what they thought as I practiced my communication and advocacy skills.

             I intend to continue to eat very little meat. I no longer place meat on half my plate. Rather, a small amount of meat is found on my plate about three days a week. I was curious about the environmental impact of limiting meat consumption even if it is not complete elimination of meat. I found that sustainability can be improved even without complete elimination of food groups (Perignon, Vieux, Soler, Masset, and Darmon 2016, 15). Moving forward, this is encouraging as now I know small changes such as limiting meat consumption can have a positive impact. I will continue to encourage family members and friends to limit meat consumption both to reduce violence against animals and the Earth.

Sources:

Perignon, Marlène, Florent Vieux, Louis-Georges Soler, Gabriel Masset, and Nicole Darmon. “Improving Diet Sustainability through Evolution of Food Choices: Review of Epidemiological Studies on the Environmental Impact of Diets.” Nutrition Reviews 75, no. 1 (January 2017): 2. https://ezproxy.lafayette.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=120221013&site=eds-live.

I am very excited to move to the next stages of my project. Right now,  I am revising my draft, looking for any possible errors with characterization or symbolism, and just general grammatic mistakes. I have settled on a name for the project. The eventual short film will be called Soul Force, a homage to satyagraha, the Gandhian term that we learned from Nagler and Kurlansky. I believe this is an appropriate title because I believe that the active practice of nonviolence is a spiritual experience; it is not easy to choose love instead of hatred. It is even more difficult to hate the opposition but not the oppressor. In my screenplay, Amani certainly displayed soul force in dealing with her sister’s death.

The central focus of my project originally had two features: successfully completing a screenplay and eventually filming a short film. At first, I sought to accomplish both in the first semester. A while ago, I contemplated the time constraints and realized that since this project is interactive and involves other people, it would be unfair to myself, my art, and the actors/actresses and producers involved to cram the actual short film into the remainder of the semester. I made an executive decision to produce and distribute the short film next semester when I will be taking a film class and can understand the intricacies of film better. I am very satisfied with my screenplay and view the short film as a continuation of the knowledge I learned this semester beyond this class.

Currently, I am making decisions about the actual production of Soul Force: its length, soundtrack, schedules, media, among other things. I am looking forward to cementing these details and moving towards the actual filming of Soul Force.

As Thanksgiving approaches, I have accepted that eating meat will be inevitable for this occasion. Nonetheless, during the past few months I was able to reduce my meat intake substantially. With my goal of boycotting industrial animal husbandry still standing, I found an even stronger motivation in trying to embrace a healthier lifestyle.

For me it is hard to continuously compromise for the sake of an issue I have only experienced through my computer screen. But when I know that I am also doing this for myself, remaining a vegetarian becomes much more compelling. So, although it is important to be aware of the maltreatment of these animals, I find that the argument for attaining a higher quality of life is more persuasive.

As humans our bodies are built better for a plant-based diet (for more go the PETA website linked below). This means that we are more efficient in digesting high fiber and nutrient dense food, the two main characteristics of a plant-based diet. My experience confirms this evidence, since I became a vegetarian I feel more energetic throughout the day and don’t experience a “food comma” after each meal, which has led to better concentration overall.

I have now realized that while I was trying to reduce violence towards animals the result that more directly impacted me was a decrease in self-violence (our bodies aren’t made for the diets we give them). It still astonishes me how many of our cultural constructions, just like with war, work against our own well-being. Finally, if you don’t think becoming a vegetarian is worth it to stop an inhumane practice, you should at least consider the health benefits.

Is It Really Natural? The Truth About Humans and Eating Meat

             I have now moved into the draft writing stage of my personal project. I think the most challenging aspect of this stage is dedicating time to write amongst my busy schedule. I’ve found that my habitual devotion to writing has become therapeutic because I can convert my daily struggles into the emotions of my characters. I think writing, is a very effective tool of nonviolence because the pen is truly mightier than the sword.  

             Now that I am in the draft writing stage of my personal project, I have completely developed my film. I am still deciding on a title, as I believe that a striking title is instrumental in getting people’s attention and conveying the right message that I want to relay.   

            The main theme of the movie is the power of forgiveness in the face of a familial travesty as the epitome of nonviolent action, but there are also other themes, such as family, colorism, racism, and structural violence, and social inequities.  

             In the film, Amani, the protagonist, finds out about her sister’s murder while away at college and is, unfortunately, unable to come to her family’s solace because of her distant geographic location. Amani, who has a fiery personality, is devasted by the death of her peaceful sister, Nia. She is forced to deal with this tragedy without her family and seeks appropriate avenues to channel her pain. In the end, she chooses to blog as her outlet and begins a blog in her sister’s honor named Nia Lives. Through the blog, Amani enumerates ways to advocate for real social change and to keep her sister’s memory alive.  

              I’ve decided that the project will be animated because animation allows for more flexibility and creativity. I am looking forward to the next stage of physically producing the film.

The last couple of weeks have been quite stressful and to my surprise I have found myself gravitating to creating mandalas to relax and regain my composure during these times. I am still working with mandalas on a smaller scale, however I am attempting to spend more time on each mandala that I do, so that they can be as neat and through as I desire. I have struggled to find a particular meaning and message that fits behind each mandala that I create, however I think as I continue this personal project an overarching theme may appear.

In Horgan’s The End of War and Nagler’s \ Nonviolence Handbook, the two authors talk about the importance of the end of war and a world of peace stemming from an inner strength and desire to engage in nonviolent behavior. To me, there lies a connection between this inner strength and the process of creating a mandala because both practices start with a center. When creating a mandala, I start by creating the most inner circles and then expanding my circle making outwards. I also start the designs on the mandala from the inside and work my way to the outside. The idea of starting from the center in a mandala creates the same impression of working from the inside to create peace and change in society.

As I continue to make mandalas, I hope to discover more connections between our nonviolence class, my life and my mandala making.

This fourth mandala entry comes after a long weekend of activity and travel, so the calm and relaxation of drawing was very much needed and appreciated. I find that through these personal projects, drawing has become something I do more often, not solely to complete the bi-weekly entry. Sometimes, in between reading or studying, to de-stress, I will draw a mandala or any other image. Now most of these are not masterful works of art, as I would classify them as doodles – but the positive effects or at least feelings are certain.  On top of this, I never considered my self to be especially artistic. Regardless, mandala drawing is enjoyable relaxing, and even give a sense of freedom because they are so abstract and can be made in so many different ways.

Over this weekend in Philadelphia I encountered homelessness all over the city. When I had money and/or spare change on hand I gave out some to those who asked and especially those who tried to perform some kind of job (e.g. holding doors, playing music). This mandala was influenced by this charity and is seen in the collections of coins in the four quadrants and the links between them.

Many people, especially those who have never attempted to become a vegetarian, think that choosing not to consume meat will have a drastic impact on their food choices and will make it more difficult for them to eat the things that they enjoy. After speaking with several of my friends who are not vegetarian, I have come to the conclusion that this assumption is generally tied to the fact that many people don’ eat very exciting meals to begin with even if they have meat in them. Growing up, since my parents are both from New York City, I was exposed to a multitude of different ethnic foods that I quickly learned to enjoy. My favorite types of food today are Indian and Thai food. These Eastern cuisines are much less meat-focused than our food culture here in the United States. Frequently, I will see many people eating plain pasta, meat without any sort of spices or sauce on it, or steamed vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, and potatoes. Indian and Asian food, however, place the center of a dish around a deep flavor or spice that can be replicated with any food serving as the main ingredient of the dish. This allows for vegetarian options to have much more depth of taste to them without getting bored of eating the same boring vegetables every day.

In my opinion, the only reason that holds many people back from stepping out of their comfort zone and trying new foods or lifestyle choices such as going vegetarian is that they are unaware as to how easy it really can be. All that is necessary is to be a little more creative in terms of what you choose to eat. Many classic American comfort foods that we have grown up with include meat. This I believe is what makes most people think that they could never give up their favorite foods and become a vegetarian. In reality, however, anyone can succeed in living a meat free life by incorporating new cultural cuisines into their meals and through taking risks to try food combinations and flavors to which they are unfamiliar.

Over the past couple weeks I have been working on gathering vegetarian recipes. I find this to be a very enjoyable way to encourage vegetarianism because I love to cook. My friends and family know this about me and like to have conversations about what I have been cooking recently. I am also finding that it can be helpful to share nutritious and delicious vegetarian recipes. People can try making the recipes and be aware that they are eating a vegetarian meal.

I sent the recipe links to a couple family members and friends by email. I have not heard back from any of them yet. I think I will call some friends and family this week to talk about vegetarianism and ask if they are interested in trying a couple recipes.

Eating vegetarian has been difficult for me at points because I am a division I track athlete. Some days I am working out for three hours straight. I sometimes want to eat meat to make sure I am getting enough protein after really hard workout days. I know that eating too many eggs is unhealthy and many alternate proteins for vegetarians contain gluten which I cannot eat. Therefore, on the occasion of a difficult workout day, I have had a little meat just to be precautionary for my health. My thought process is that reducing my intake of meat from once a day seven days a week to once a day two or three days a week still helps. If everyone ate meat only a couple times a week, there would be fewer animals raised for meat.

I look forward to trying to persuade friends and family to try eating meat only a few times a week. I hope that the recipes I share help them in reducing meat consumption by providing a set of instructions.

Here are some of the recipes I shared with friends and family.

The Cooks at Stone Pier Press. 2018. “Easy Quinoa Burgers.” Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.stonepierpress.org/recipes/easy-quinoa-burgers

Schaefer, Rebecca. 2018. “Garlic Green Beans.” Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.stonepierpress.org/recipes/garlicgreenbeans

The Cooks at Stone Pier Press. 2017. “Vegan Asparagus Lemon Risotto.” Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.stonepierpress.org/recipes/asparagus-lemon-risotto

The Cooks at Stone Pier Press. 2018. “Baked Sweet Potatoes with Chili Lentils.” Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.stonepierpress.org/recipes/baked-sweet-potatoes-with-chili-lentils

For the past two weeks or so I have been practicing a type of meditation called Vipassana Meditation. This type of meditation is similar to mindfulness, except it utilizes a key concept and strategy called “mental labeling”. “Vipassana” is a Pali word meaning “clear-seeing” or “insight”. This practice focuses mainly on attaining a clear sight on your physical and mental being, without holding on or concentrating on one thought or feeling.

One way to practice Vipassana is to sit on a cushion on the floor, or on a chair, sitting with a straight spine. To develop concentration, one must focus on their breath and chest movements. This specific exercise is called samatha practice. While focusing on the breath, other perceptions and thoughts can creep in, such as sounds, physical feelings, thoughts, emotions, etc. Vipassana focuses on accepting those sensations, and then returning to the breath. The attention is kept on the breath, and everything else continues in the background.

To aid in concentration, one can use the “noting” method. This method requires one to focus on the main object, called the primary object (the breath). A secondary object is anything else that may pop into our minds. If a secondary object pops into your concentration, the labeling method suggests you label the thought or feeling with a mental note, such as “noise” or “memory” or “feeling”. This helps your mind to move on quickly and not focus on the thought. This concept and practice of focusing on your  main object, while being aware without attachment on secondary objects is called mental labeling.

Vipassana meditation was definitely a first for me. I had never used the labeling method and was a little skeptical on if it would be effective. I found it to be really helpful during my meditation. Putting a quick and easy label on something made it easier to move on from the thought and go back to my primary object of concentration. Overall, Vipassana helped me better connect with how my body was feeling and working, as well as my mind. I found my mind to be busy with thought about schoolwork, assignments, and scheduling. Once I was able to label those thoughts and release them, I was able to focus on lightening my mind and helping me focus and go into different obstacles with a clear and focused mind. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who would like to try meditation!