You Eat, Therefore You Are.

This post is coming to you on a Saturday afternoon at 2 PM. I woke up not even 30 minutes ago. This is what Spring Break does to me. Any break really - Christmas, Summer, Thanksgiving, even friggin' Presidents' Day. It's really easy to fall off the bandwagon of regular sleeping hours and meal times when there are no pressing matters at hand. No class at 10? Sleep till 2. As great as that sounds, I really, really hate it. Not so much because holidays throw off my sleeping schedule, but instead because they affect my eating habits. I ALWAYS feel like a fatass during the holidays, no matter how hard I try to combat the fat. For example, I slept for like 12 hours last night, and woke up well past lunch time today. Sleeping all day is not exactly great for your metabolism, as the body slows down its digestion during sleep to store energy. So upon waking and looking at the time today, I new that my body has a right to be displeased.

I am in something of a constant state of reevaluating my eating habits. Starting at about 14 years old I chose to "wisen up" (though I'm not entirely sure who I am quoting there) in regards to my consumption habits. Cut out the fast food and the soda, the processed high-glycemic carbs and machiatos, despite how much I enjoy them all. But the motivation was not really derived from who and how I intended to be through food - it was more about how I wanted to look. Which, in retrospect, was not such a bad motivator. Physical appearance is certainly very compelling. But now, nearly five years later, my attitude about food is different. Food was fuel but also fearful at 14, worrying about what I can and can't eat. Now, food is certainly still fuel, and certainly still some of it ought not to be trusted, but food is also life. I keep perseverating on that old phrase that "You are what you eat." It's totally true! Although I'd never REALLY critically thought about that heuristic, I cannot deny now that it makes total sense.

I'm writing this in the vein of Ishmael, but also, and maybe more prominently in the vein of The Story of B, having just completed it yesterday. The Story of B, in its final chapters gets to the heart of animism and the "Law of Life," which is that the universe has set up bioligical rules to foster life. FOOD. Food is the great proponent of life, considering that everything consumed has an affect on everything thereafter. Because the equation is simple, that F = L (food/life), no surprise comes from the fact that totalitarian agriculture has caused overpopulation, precisely because it has overproduced food supplies. Too much food means too much life, and then too much life results in not enough food unless we continue the totalitarian agriculture. So, you eat, therefore you are. I've been toting this with to the fridge, the table, the drive-thru, the coffee bar, and basically everywhere else where calories can be found. I don't want to be partially-hydrogenated, I don't want to be Monosodium Glutamate. I don't want to be high-glycemic, I don't want to be empty calories. I want to live through food, not get fat and die through it. I feel like this is highly relevant for Americans, considering that much of our food contains mystery chemicals X, Y, and Z. Anyway, once again the old wisdom prevails.