Commitment - Page 2

I went into the city today. I meant to eat vegan today. I had a croissant and coffee (with milk) for breakfast (no Oatley's in the house). For lunch, the only thing they had was fried oysters and fries (in oil). They also had cole slaw (egg) which I wanted to eat. Then they had a pecan pie with vanilla ice cream (egg + dairy) I wanted to eat. I also had coffee with cream. For dinner I ate sweet potato and asparagus and couldn't resist a delicious salmon patty. I did come to the realization that I don't have to eat like the French and that it's not going to make me particularly that happy. It's going to make me fat. Same with the Southern diet. I don't know if I can go full vegan right off the bat but I have to trend in that way. I think I will hate myself if I don't.

I took a walk down Shopping St. in the city today. I felt like this guy:



Otherwise I'm mostly just chilling. I wanted to keep things on topic. The vegan thing I think is a legitimate piece to commitment and intentionality. It's a start at least.

The Shopping St. experience is just something that was kind of jarring and it was also nice. I never go shopping anymore and it felt good to not enter any stores but rather just take a walk to find out where this great Korean restaurant is and not care that I wasn't well-dressed or trendy or cool.

I'm still drawing a blank on what I am good at and what I like.

I think I might have given up on meetup.com.

If I can just trend towards vegan, read more (which I have been doing), and exercise more regularly that should be a good start to anything I put my mind to.

Considering I still haven't come across what I both am good at and like doing in a work context, my thinking on commitment continues to come along, and I may have just cancelled meetup.com I think this blog may just turn into a what did I eat today which will probably lose novelty rather quickly.

For breakfast I had a rather standard petit dejeuner of baguette toast with really fucking good jam. I'm never that hungry in the mornings. I just like to get something in there and move on with the day. I had my coffee black.

For lunch I had pumpkin oatmeal with some bananas. I realize now that the oatmeal actually had milk in it. Bummer. I have made that oatmeal sooooo many times with Oatley's Oat Milk I didn't even think about it. My mom made it the other day with dairy milk. I want to make some gallo pinto tomorrow. I need to have the discipline to do that before work.

Dinner I had some Indian curry.... or what the hot food area considers Indian curry. It was lacking in a lot of spices to be considered Indian curry but it was still pretty decent. I had some vegetable samosas as well. I am pretty sure everything in prepared foods is fried in oil and not animal fat. I am going to have to explore. I am slightly worried that there isn't a lot of choice at work.

I don't understand why I am always hungry when I get home from work? At least, I went with a banana, some mango, and some crackers with amazing jam instead of taking fromage and eating a pint of ice cream.

I am also back to part undead zone. I tried reading a book is not very dense at all so far and I am just like fuck this sucks. I'm tired, I'm yawning but it just feels like it's not time for bed yet. I don't know why I think gaming would be fun at this time either. Zombie'ing out to some TV seems like the "best" option. I don't want to commit to a film.

You're not supposed to commit to what you like or what you're good at. That's how you end up chasing your tail. You become good at that which you commit to, and you commit to things that you don't like because they are necessary. Isn't that what discipline = freedom by your bud Jocko all about? You start with simple things like watching a vegan documentary if you have an interest in it, committing to paying attention.

You are intentional about what you do or you just don't do it. You ask questions about what is in the food if you care about veganism. You don't make assumptions when you can have answers. If you don't want to, you don't want to, but you don't obsess about it either. You move on to something you're willing to do. Half assing doesn't ever help.

I ate:

Breakfast - Toast with amazing jam. Black coffee.

I have acquired some Oatley's Oat Milk. Some is probably going into the cup of coffee tomorrow.

Lunch - Gallo Pinto

Real easy. 1 cup of basmati rice. 1.5 c water. Have a kick ass rice cooker. It takes about an hour to cook. Go to store get ingredients. Dice 1 onion. Mince about 2 cloves of garlic. Throw some oil in a pan an start cooking the garlic. Let it cook just a little bit and throw in the onions. You want the onions to get translucent. Stir occasionally or ideally learn how to do the pro flip with the pan. Dice 1 red bell pepper for garnish. Rough chop some cilantro for garnish. Find a good jalapeño sauce. I just grabbed some Cholula green sauce. There is a Costa Rican salsa that is very delicious as well called Salsa Lizano but I have to order it from Amazon and just said fuck it who cares. I like getting the pre-cooked black beans w/ out salt added in the can. When onions are good and translucent I just throw in the beans in the pan and stir. The beans are already cooked we just want to warm them up a bit. You could eat it all at room temperature too and it would still be good. I forgot to add salt and pepper and it was still delicious. This is one of my go to dishes and you can really make it however you want. I mostly just make it for convenience. It makes about 4 or 5 servings I would say. I already had basmati rice, vegetable oil, garlic. My grocery bill was less than $10.

Dinner - Vegan Indian Curry + Naked Mango Drink

Not bad. I am not sure if I could see myself eating it every day. I'll have to consider bringing in the Gallo Pinto from home but then I am eating that 2 times a day as well. I suppose I have to delve back in to some other recipes so I can have more variety. I typically don't mind eating the same thing over and over but I have my limits.

You're not supposed to commit to what you like or what you're good at. That's how you end up chasing your tail. You become good at that which you commit to, and you commit to things that you don't like because they are necessary. Isn't that what discipline = freedom by your bud Jocko all about? You start with simple things like watching a vegan documentary if you have an interest in it, committing to paying attention. You are intentional about what you do or you just don't do it. You ask questions about what is in the food if you care about veganism. You don't make assumptions when you can have answers. If you don't want to, you don't want to, but you don't obsess about it either. You move on to something you're willing to do. Half assing doesn't ever help.

Ummmmm... For employment one should probably be looking into stuff they are good at and that they like. If someone is bad at something they aren't going to get hired and they probably won't enjoy what they are doing. My brother is extremely good at math. He also enjoys math. He now works as a Data Scientist and thrives. My sister is great at what she does and loves it and thrives. My other sister has finally found something she enjoys doing and is rather good at it and she thrives. I still don't get why I would pursue employment in something I am bad at or don't enjoy. I guess I see your point though Advanced schooling is probably pretty shitty no matter how you cut it. Yeah, my bud Jocko would get up everyday to train at 4:45am and go to grad school probably.

I wasn't talking about work. Of course one should look for a line of work they like and can do well in (but even in a good job, there's a lot that you won't like doing). But landing the "dream job" is a luxury nowadays, and your dissatisfaction with your life stems far more from drifting/living unintentionally than it does from doing work you don't like, so that should be your main focus. Of course work you don't like compounds on this since it takes a lot of your energy (even when you're no longer there). You're basically primed to be in that autopilot mode. That has always been one of the main arguments against wage labor, not just by anarchists but even by people like Adam Smith.

I'm not suggesting it's easy or that you're lazy, but there's a lot of things you can do to improve your well-being. But it's like your behavior is often ruled by the fallacy of "I just ate one spoonful of ice cream, I broke my commitment, so I might as well eat the whole tub." It's like things just happen to you, you give up your agency easily, moment to moment.

The way you write here regularly points this out, "I am here writing this, I should probably be doing this other thing" -- it's like you're watching yourself from above and the body is doing its own thing while you exist in a different sphere where you have no influence over your behavior. It reminds me of a scene in "The End of the Fucking World" where a pedophile grabs this kid's hand and places it on his dick at the urinal while they're both peeing. He just lets it happen, because he feels like there's no reason to resist. Things just happen, and it's not worth it to engage with them.

Look at what you wrote at the top: " I meant to eat vegan today". Just how much conscious effort did you place into actualizing your goal there? What does "I meant to eat vegan today" really mean? Does it mean "I would have liked to eat vegan for the day if it was really easy and there had been no temptation to do otherwise" or does it mean "I tried to commit to eating vegan and prepared for it."? From the looks of your day, it looks like it meant the former. The fact that something wasn't in the house was enough to break the commitment for your first meal. For your second meal, you decided to go to a place where there were no vegan options.

So, by all evidence, you liked the idea of eating vegan, but you didn't like the idea of doing much of anything in order to successfully do so. So why think about it, or write about it at all? Why not look into things you can do and commit to and don't just like the idea of? Surely there are some things that you can do that don't require an enormous amount of willpower that is hard to sustain. It could be reading a chapter of a book every day, or eating a plant-based meal every day, or a full day of plant-based eating every week. You come up with the pros and cons of doing/not doing those things and you start where it's manageable. But you don't just think about how it would be nice, you think about the obstacles you're likely to face and what to do when they come up. You engineer your environment to make it possible. It's not going to make you feel amazing about yourself most of the time if they're small goals, but it's a start and it beats drifting endlessly with pseudo-goals.

The problem with people like Jocko is that they are productivists. They don't care about what's manageable to one person, and how much their addictions help them cope with their problems, they prescribe the same kind of productivism to everyone, which is stupidly unsustainable. This kind of productivism is either abandoned because it's too overwhelming or it becomes its own addiction, like Byung Chul-han speaks about.

It's more than just autopilot. It's an undead zone. Not quite dead but not quite alive.

I ate some strawberry shortcake today. My workmate had some and offered it to me and I unthinkingly ate some. So, I had a bite of whip cream and cake. I didn't come home and eat a pint of ice cream. I went: "Oh shit, that was dumb. Oh well" and moved forward with the day. That first day I decided to go vegan it was just the idea. Fried oysters and fries is going to be vegan in 99% of restaurants around here. I've only been to one restaurant here that uses animal fat and they use duck fat. Their specialty is duck. Canola oil or peanut oil is going to be so much cheaper and easier. Either way it's a moot point since I didn't ask the waitress what they fried their food in and I ate the coleslaw and then I had a pie and ice cream. I obviously wasn't very serious that day. I did ask my place of employment what they fry their food with and it's canola oil which is what I was pretty sure it was anyway.

Addicts would tell you that there is a mental obsession and an allergy of the body. I don't know what I believe. In the pederast example he had an obsession to have the boy touch his penis and once he does this he will not stop and want more. The obsession will get worse. A lot of this literature feels archaic and from the 1930s-1950s but this is how addiction was taught to me. I don't know if I believe I have agency. Thankfully, I don't have any predilections towards pedophilia but with drinking it was as if I didn't have agency.

No, I am going to go for vegan. I ate vegan yesterday and it was fine. I ate vegan today besides the blank on the strawberry shortcake sample. I'm going to make mistakes most likely. It's not going to be easy. I may end up justifying eating dairy and some animal meat again. I have found for me eating vegan only gets easier. It get easier until I get into good shape and then I want to branch out for whatever reason and I eat the French diet, the Southern diet, etc. and I start gaining weight but I don't care because I love all the foods. It's the pleasure trap.

I'm not planning on waking up at 4:45am everyday and going to grad school. I did attempt to live that life for months meaning waking up at 4:45am to train and then go to work and it was actually pretty good. The thing about the achievement-subject is it's not like I am even trying to go crazy at work. I still get tired and find myself in the undead zone. I've been a self-exploiting workaholic before fighting for some immortality project or status or whatever and I don't think I am in that zone. Hopefully, I'll never enter that zone again but I am still undead when I come home from work and it takes like a night of sleep and if I have a day off I typically have rid myself of it. I don't know if I understand the last part. I don't think I am a productivist nor am I attempting to be one.

The plot thickens. The kitchen I work at makes sure to fry vegetarian in vegetarian and animal matter in animal matter but how many places do this? Duh duh duh. I obviously shouldn't be eating samosas if they were fried in a fryer that was frying chicken fingers eh?

What's the longest you have gone without using the internet in the past 5 years?

I was in a psych ward for 2 weeks.

I also went camping a handful of times for like 3-5 days.

That's all I recall at this time.

Oh, I was in England and Paris for a week+ without internet

By the way ya'll. Dominion is a horrifying yet enlightening movie. I challenge ya'll to watch it.

Do you recall if you felt any different?

Yes, I did although it was also circumstantial.

Psych ward when I was stable was pretty chill and we had activities through out the day. Downtime we just sat around and shot the shit or I read in my room. It was one of the best pysch wards in the nation. I didn't like being pent up or asking people to use the restroom, etc. but my time there was quite nice actually.

Camping I definitely felt differently. I miss getting out into nature with friends. You make breakfast together, you talk, you read, you throw around some kettlebells or whatever. You forage for logs and twigs and what have you for a fire. Looking at the sky at night. The non-light polluted sky. Sitting around a campfire for hours and hours and hours. I am never quite at peace like I am out in nature.

The cool part about England and Paris is that there were wifi connections abound but I didn't even think to use it. Again, a lot of conversation and reading. Paris there wasn't enough time in the day. Although, I'm sure if I actually lived there it would be different and I'd be on the computer everyday.

I think a connection in all 3 cases was I was surrounded by interesting people and interesting things to do. One thing about camping in particular is I could just sit down and read more or less a whole book over a few sittings or 1 sitting depending on the book. I never get that level of peace and quiet and absence of instant gratification. It's either read or go for a walk or do some tidying up or go off on some project. Paris there is just so much to do it's like why the fuck would I be on the internet? In England I have relatives I may only see every 4 years or less so am I really going to be on the internet or am I going to spend some quality time with them. The psych ward it wasn't an option and they provided a lot of cool activities like Tai Chi, Art classes, journaling time, et al. I filled up 2 adult coloring books as well re-read "Thus Spake Tharathustra" and read "Madame Bovary." It didn't always feel like I was locked up in an institution and they also taught us more about our mental illnesses. My time there is why I'm convinced that if we took a more rehabilitative approach to all institutions including prison that would be a huge step forward.

Do you have some studies on internet use or something?

It seems so foreign to me to not use the internet if I'm not on vacation. Like, I don't even know what I would do right now. 9:48 PM on a Wednesday night. I suppose read. I could paint if I felt like it. I had a nap today so I am not undead. The world is my oyster yet I sit here on this computer. Meh.

Zarathustra*

There are studies for everything, but yeah, the kind of uncritical use of the internet that you speak of is known to be associated with (increasing) depression and anxiety. In any case, it's just another area of focus to be more intentional about. Another pleasure trap to be resisted. The Stoics taught about occasional voluntary deprivation for this sort of thing. It's of course very difficult. Mark Fisher talks about this feeling on the internet that is best defined as a combination of being bored and curious at the same time and how normalized it has become to remain in that state for extended periods of time.

The world is certainly not your oyster. There's a lot more that you can't do than there is that you can do. But there's still a lot of things to explore and do if the motivation is there.

Mexie urges me to eat vegan...

Veganism to the tracks of Mark Fisher (among others)



Not that veganism is actually that big of a deal. I eat some food and go about my day. I think it gets a lot more complex when considering things human cruelty involved in chocolate, tomatoes, bananas, sugar, et al. It's hard to keep up with everything. It's like you go down this rabbit hole and shit is really fucked up. I wonder if I will kill myself like Mark. It's a real possibility. I am re-learning veganism. I just realized today that typically anything fried was battered in milk and flour. So, hushpuppies, oysters, clams, etc. are out. Hushpuppies are out anyway since most cornbread is made with buttermilk. Eating out becomes difficult. Fuck eating out at most places anyways. It's like not eating ice cream anymore. It's actually quite good for me in the long run. Even if I substitute with like 500 calories of dark cherries at least I am getting some fiber and anti-oxidants. I am finding it hard to really overeat on a plant-based diet.

Should I still use my "cruelty free" body wash or "cruelty free" deoderant? Does it matter? It's like getting non-dairy ice cream from Haggen Daz.

What if my dentist gives me free samples of Colgate?

Am I allowed to eat pizza that would otherwise be going into the trash?

Damn, how do we make a dent in all of this bullshit.

RIP Mark Fisher

We already went over this. Try to sustain the 'hard' stuff and worry about the small stuff later, if at all. In practical terms: get better at handling the diet aspect of things and the psycho-social aspect. Mexie does answer your questions at the end though with regards to ideal consumption habits, even though they are secondary.

In all likelihood, you will not maintain it. Most people fail to do so, especially without a strong circle of support, it's almost guaranteed. People like Mexie gain positive reinforcement for their choice all the time, since they are politically active and have a lot of vegan friends, which is something you will not be getting. I can do without it but people like me are very rare, it's a personality type thing, not saying I'm any better than you or anything like that.

Some people need to watch animal agriculture footage somewhat regularly in order to remind themselves of why they are doing it despite the negatives because we are social animals and peer pressure eventually affects nearly everyone if we don't prepare effectively.