"An interesting post with many valid points. However I must ask how many
people you have met that are completely made of vegetables?"
I got a laugh out of that, so thanks for commenting :) I would have replied with a comment as well, but then I couldn't have posted the lovely vegetable man picture shown above.
Now, you may argue that he is made of fruits and flowers as well as vegetables and so he doesn't count, but really, be fair. I found a freakin vegetable man for you. Appreciate it.
It's a wonderful painting, by the way, it's by the super cool surrealist painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo. And yes, I spelled that without looking it up and I got it right. Boo-yah.
Points for Anonymous: 1 for witty comment
Points for Storm Marie White: 2 for remembering a vegetable man portrait off the top of my head and knowing how to spell the artist's crazy foreign name.
Hey guys,
Today, the post title actually makes sense (cheer!) because I'm going to talk about why I'm vegetarian.
I get asked about that a TON. And I get why, it's sort of unusual, I know a lot of other vegetarians, but I sure know way more non-veggies!
I've been a vegetarian a couples times, but until the summer of last year, I hadn't stuck to it for more than a few days at a time. Partially because my family likes meat and I used to cook dinner for them every night, and I wouldn't cook them meat when I was vegetarian, so they didn't get meat. So they got mad at me and I stopped. :P
Now, when I originally started thinking about becoming a vegetarian this particular time, it was because I was going on a mission trip to Peru, and I was told that I'd be expected to try anything I was served, unless I had a "valid excuse:. Which, they said, could possibly include guinea pigs, llamas, and alpacas.
I could not be responsible for the deaths of such adorable creatures, and I definitely could not eat them. Uh-uh. Llamas are one of my favorite animals ever. I like to hug them, not eat them.
So to avoid eating them, I considered becoming vegetarian again, because that was considered a "valid excuse." I decided I should look into it a bit more before I went for it, so I did a bit of research on why people become vegetarian. And some of the reasons seemed pretty valid, and along with my own reasons, it was enough to convince me to become and stay vegetarian.
I've always loved animals, which is the main reason I tried to be vegetarian the first couple times, but I don't think it's wrong to eat meat. I often joke that I think you"Carnivores" are disgusting, but I don't really mean it at all.
However, I think we have a duty to treat the animals well while they live and kill them as painlessly as possible. I don't think the world is succeeding in doing that quite yet. I mean, electrocuting chickens and waving them around upside down, then killing them? I sure wouldn't like that. They also spend their entire lives cooped up in the tiniest spaces, perhaps never knowing the pleasure of running around in the grass. That sounds pretty sad to me, and though me avoiding meat won't stop it, I don't want to help it continue either.
I also don't really trust meat companies either. Who knows what weird stuff they're feeding the animals to make them grow bigger faster. D: And what if the meat isn't what it says it is? I don't know how anyone can trust meat companies after the whole horse meat thing.
Meat also isn't especially healthy for you and it's kind of expensive as well. I also really hate the taste of seafood, and ham, and love most animals too much to eat them. So being vegetarian has been a good option for me, really.
But I do occasionally miss eating meat a bit, not super often, but sometimes. And if I got meat from a local farmer that I knew treated his animals well and they were killed humanely, I would eat it.
Another good reason to not eat meat, or eat less, is that to some degree, it might be contributing to world hunger. Which is explained in this SciShow video. Sorry, it's a pretty long video, but it's pretty interesting as well.
So yes, I hope I covered everything.. I may have forgotten something but those were the key points at least :)
Oh, and I'm only vegetarian, not vegan, by the way. :P
That's what they always tell us nowadays. Be yourself and you'll be fine! Follow your heart!
Sounds great and lovely, right?
But for crying out loud, what does that even mean? To "be yourself"? Maybe it's just me, but it seems to just be a feel good "do what makes you happy" saying.
I mean, you really can't be anyone else except you. And what inherent value does "being yourself" really have?
I mean you're going to be you. You can try to be someone else but in the end you'll still be you just with some surface appearance of them.
And "follow your heart"?
The heart is deceitful above all things. If you don't believe that, just think how many times your friends have "fallen in love" with their boyfriends or girlfriends, only to break up a couple weeks later and date somebody else. Their excuse for this, honestly, extremely shallow behavior, is that they're following their hearts.
Good job, Hearts.
There are a ton of other similar phrases. "Do what feels right" for example.
I think all those sorts of advice are confusing and unhelpful at best. Maybe even harmful and deceptive.
Maybe next time you advise your friend to be herself, think twice. Maybe instead you should advise her to try to be the person she wants to be. Have her think of how the nicest and most awesome girl she can make up would act.
Maybe don't advise your friends to follow their hearts and do what feels right and makes them happy.
Some times doing the best thing is horrendously hard and you feel freakin horrible afterwards. But you'll look back some day and realize it was worth it.
So tell them to do what they think is right.
That's what I think. Maybe I explained what I think very badly. Ask me to clarify! Maybe you disagree. Tell me why! Maybe you'd like to add to what I said, mention some similar phrases. Let me know! Comment below :)
Or, if you're on twitter, tweet #justbeyourself and I'll check it out. (My twitter username is @stormmariewhite... creative, I know)
Or post on my new facebook page..
Or email me.. storm.marie.white@gmail.com
Or google+ me.. just search "Storm White" and I should come up.
Yes, I'm pretty much everywhere. Have fun stalking me, guys. ;P
And here's a lovely song by Mree that partially inspired this post :)
“There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
Now that I've insulted you all, if you complain about the previous unfulfilled promise about that spontaneous fiction thing, I can claim that you're really just bitter because I insulted you to your face. No wait, I mean, I insulted your face.
Boardwalk Amblers Anonymous, improving people's self-image every day!
Yes, so I actually did start writing that thing, but then I realized that I had to take the ACT soon and that I should probably be studying, not writing a story for the internet to read. So I studied. Some. Yah... but I took the ACT this morning, so now if I don't post it soon, I give you full permission to yell at me.
You won't make me regret saying that, will you? Nawwww, you guys are too nice for dat :)
So today, since I'm done with the ACT (For now) I have been messing around with HDR photography. Which is pretty stinking cool by the way. I'm not incredible at it yet, but it's fun.See photo above for one of my attempts with it.
Ello, it just occurred to me that it wasn't actually me who insulted you, it was Abraham Lincoln. Bahaha.
I have no idea what else I was planning to say, so goodbye.
