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A vegetarianism of convenience July 24, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Life, Ramble , add a comment

Technically perhaps not really a vegetarianism, as I do eat fish, and as such would officially be a pescetarian but as that’s not a term I’ve ever really heard anyone use in conversation I refer to myself as a vegetarian simply so that people understand me and so when I refer to vegetarianism I’m talking about what I do, not official vegetarianism. Either way though the point remains the same. It’s likely to just end up as a ramble, I’m not making an argument here, I’m just trying to organize my thoughts a bit so I can’t really structure it well. It’s just all jumbled up in my head so that’s how it’s going to come out.

I’ve not been eating meat for quite a long time. I’m not exactly sure how long a time, I don’t think I was intelligent enough to date it. My best guesstimate puts it around 7-8 years, perhaps a bit more. Considering that I’m 17, that’s a substantial chunk of my life so far. It’s a big thing.

It all started out from a growing distaste for the consumption of animals, more specifically though farmyard animals such as cows, pigs and chickens. A major catalyst in the whole process was the Simpsons episode “Lisa the Vegetarian“. Yes, that’s right, vegetarianism based on a Simpsons episode. You can tell I really loved the Simpsons. It’s not to say that I simply took the episode at face value and just stopped eating meat, I wasn’t quite that easy to manipulate, the ideas had been brewing in my head for a while.

So that was it, I just stopped eating meat.

It wasn’t exactly easy at first, I kinda forgot some things were meat but eventually it was alright. I managed to keep it a secret from all my friends for quite a while, it was quite a shock when it was finally revealed. Since then I haven’t kept it hidden from my friends and some other people (eg people around me on school trips where the fact that I eat different food to others is obvious) but I don’t exactly shout it from the rooftops. It’s not something that I use to get attention and I only go into explaining my reasons if asked. I’ve never really objected to people eating meat around me, indeed my mother has always eaten meat and continues to do so, often creating meals I wouldn’t eat even if I did eat meat.

And that brings me nicely to my point.

The only real reason I am still a vegetarian is out of sheer convenience. The reasons I had for it when I started are all but gone now and instead its much more about what’s easiest. Whilst I began caring about the fact that farm animals are raised with no future than to be put to death when the right weight/age now I don’t care. I don’t have a particular justification for this change in view, no argument from a meat eater has swung me over, I simply don’t care that much anymore.

Quite possibly an important element to this is that at some point I decided something about what I should care about, my priorities if you will. I decided that at no point would I care more about animals than I do about humans. Perhaps at face value this may seem like egotistical humanity at its best but I don’t really think it is, all I really mean by this is that humans come first because they are my species and I should care about their suffering more than that of any other creature. This doesn’t stop me from caring about animal welfare, indeed I still do, I just care about humans more. I obviously think that things like poaching animals for ivory, or destroying habitat to the point of extinction etc is horrible and should be stopped but you have to recognize the human causes behind these actions and address them to really address the animal welfare issue.

I’m going off topic here, that’s really stuff for a different post.

Ultimately it comes down to this: I have no reason to continue being a vegetarian but I don’t really have an easy way to stop.

This is generally not something I can discuss with the majority of my friends, since they would either need some power empathy drives (which, no offense to most of em but its not the most common trait we have) or to be in the situation themselves to know what to do. Indeed, when I posed that above statement to one of my meat eating friends it meant nothing to him, he sees eating meat as the easiest thing in the world so to him there should be nothing more complex to starting to eat meat than simply to pick up a fork and tuck in.

But that’s just not the way these things work. At this point, after not eating meat for so long, there is such a heavy psychological barrier built up between me and the consumption of meat.

I’ve never really given a fuss about small amounts of meat product in things like cheese (althouugh tried to avoid them) so primarily we’re talking about starting to eat meat properly. I’m talking frying up some bacon and eating it. It’s not like I don’t know how nice these meat products are and how much I’m missing out by not eating them.

So what is it that’s stopping me at the moment?

1. Habit

This is obviously the big one, trying to get past the habit of not eating meat for this long isn’t an easy one but I have overcome habits in the past, things like biting my nails or cracking my neck are things that I’ve managed to stop doing. Nothing big really but then there hasn’t really been anything big in my life to go past habit with. The only exception might be Runescape, where it was borderline on addiction at points but now I can’t really imagine playing again.

2. Health Benefits

As it is, I’m already over my ideal weight (or really it’s body size, too much flab), I’m not hugely fat but still bigger in the wrong places in the wrong ways than I’d like. I already have a tendency to eat too much of stuff that is probably high in saturates and other fat so it’s likely that moving onto eating meat would just make this worse. One thing that heavily contradicts this is talking with a friend about it, he used to be a vegetarian (it was a family thing so he didn’t really have starting reasons to contend with) and since he stopped (only just earlier this year) he’s lost weight and gained muscle. Indeed, this sort of makes a certain amount of sense. Protein is one of the things you have to struggle a bit with to get when not eating meat and may be something holding me back in the building of my muscles.

All this is a bit speculative because I’m sure there are people on both sides of the debate. Either way though, I could use to be a bit healthier, I’m just generally quite lazy and although I don’t dislike exercise I do find putting effort into food preparation a bit difficult.

Looking at wikipedia right now, there are definitely strong for and against arguments for everything. Indeed, it says that vegetarianism can even meet the protein requirements of body builders.

I am of course, perfectly aware that a sample of one person doesn’t really mean anything and that the changes my friend saw could be due to a number of things and may have nothing to do with eating meat. Indeed, he still doesn’t get to eat meat at home so his consumption hasn’t exactly been high.

3 - It makes me special

This one isn’t really very big but it certainly exists. Being a vegetarian makes me special and probably gives me instant brownie points with any hippies I meet along the road of life whereas being an ex-vegetarian probably just makes me look like I was sucked in by propaganda sent down from The Man. It’s one of those details that makes people curious, makes people want to talk to me and ask questions. As I said earlier, attention seeking really wasn’t the point behind it when I started and it isn’t now, indeed, trying to explain the reasons behind something that you no longer even believe to be right is pretty difficult and probably just makes me look like a weak willed fool.

4 - What would I eat if I stopped?

This is a big one, possibly the biggest, reason why I am in this state of non-decision. At the moment, my meals are pretty solid in my mind. Typically rotating between meat free Tortellini (a sort of stuffed pasta), pizza, curry using bought curry sauce and Quorn pieces, pasta or potatoes with other Quorn dishes, ready meals (often with fish) and occasionally vegetable and tofu stir fries. I’m pretty happy with what I eat, it could be better certainly but it tastes good and the stuff I do for myself (the majority of the time) is easy and nice. Starting to eat meat could potentially disrupt all of this. Particularly if I announce it to my mother, I have no idea what she’ll try and force me into.

This brings me nicely out of that section and into options.

Options

1 - Decide to simply become a meat eater again

This would basically just entail going back to where I was before I stopped eating. I throw away my happy non-meat meal structure in favour of the meaty alternatives, in some cases this would simply mean an increased selection - I could have a pepperoni pizza sometimes alongside the current plain and vegetable ones. It would also make me much more obliged to eat the same thing as my mum more often which I’m not really sure I want. I enjoy the freedom and independence that preparing my own meals brings and eating meat could take away from this. On top of that, as I said before, some of the things she makes I really wouldn’t want to eat regardless. Being vegetarian gives me an easy excuse to avoid it.

Due to these reasons this option seems unlikely, though it is an option none the less.

2 - Be an occasional meat eater

This would essentially mean becoming like my ex-vegetarian friend and whilst not eating meat at home I would occasionally eat it when out at friend’s houses or in restaurants. This option seems pretty strong because it enables me to keep the majority of the health benefits of not eating meat whilst supplementing them with occasional treats if you will and making me much less fussy when it comes to eating outside my home. This is one of the greatest things that irritates me about my vegetarianism, it makes me seem like a fussy eater when in fact I’ll eat almost anything, so long as it isn’t meat. Being an occasional meat eater would turn that into will eat almost anything full stop, which is much closer to me since I like almost everything.

If I did go with this option I still lack a date for it to start or any kind of determination as to how I will do it exactly, which is arguably my biggest problems at the moment. I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to stop at some point due to the amount of doubt I have about it so it becomes more down to a question of “how?”. This could ultimately keep me not eating meat for the rest of my life so it’s pretty important. Taking that first step is always the way to do anything and I’m not sure how I would do that at the moment…

Conclusion

Last night (technically the night before that now) was my friend’s 18th and we hung out with a barbecue and some drinks. It was good fun.  The point of this is that I had ultimately decided quite a few hours before the actual occasion that I was going to have my first proper taste of meat since I stopped, however many years ago that was I’m not sure.  I went through with it, putting me into a place that is a bit difficult to describe.

Having done it I don’t really feel any different about the situation or that I’m very likely to continue eating meat on a regular basis.  Something that people may want to know stems from the taste, yes, it was good, better than the Quorn replacement (although, they were quite expensive sausages), it’s certainly something I’ve missed.  Ultimately when you are a carnivore at heart, which I am, those tendencies are never really going to go away.

It’s going to be a little odd, I’m probably going to become what I am now dubbing a “Social Meat Eater” which I described to a friend as “Like a social smoker but with more dead animals and less lung cancer”.  In that sense it means that my food options won’t really be limited (except for a few meats I don’t really want to eat on moral grounds due to shall we say “exceptional” cruelty) but that I will continue to not eat meat normally. Honestly I think that my original plan of starting to eat meat again once I am rich enough to afford quality still fits really, I doubt that cheap meat is any better than the alternatives (which is what I thought before, now I’m that bit closer to knowing).

This also preserves my meals at home and probably makes me a bit healthier by adding variety but not over doing it.  As it happens I get the feeling meat will be much like wearing my contact lenses, only done when necessary.

This conclusion was essentially inevitable, once I had lost the reasoning and passion behind my decision to stop eating meat it was only a matter of time before I started again, in some shape or form.  In the end there is no such thing as a perfect solution, I have come to one as close to perfect for me personally as there is but I realised from reading articles by people in similar situations to me that different lives are almost incomparable when it comes to this.  I hope if anyone does read this searching for help making the decision gets something from it, despite the rambly length of it.

As a note, Wordpress 2.6 is now happily reporting that this post is very close to 2500 words long. Youch. If only I put this much effort into my A levels. That’s a different story mind you…

So much for that then

Posted by Sharny in : Gear, Instances, Paladin, World of Warcraft , add a comment

After my last post you can imagine my surprise when logging into WoW 5mins before raid time hoping to maybe run Kara that I saw the guild message of the day saying we were doing Magtheridon.  I quickly flicked up the guild roster to see that we had 20 people online, which I’ve not seen for a while.  So yeah, so much for never seeing 25 mans again.

I’m happy to say that we got him down on the third attempt, after some bad luck on the first attempt with the cave in coinciding with a blast nova and then one of our cube clickers lagging right before a blast nova on the second try.  No loots for me there but he doesn’t actually drop anything I want now anyway, my chest is better than the T4 one now.

In recruitment news, we seem to have paladins growing out of our ears now.  There were a total of 6 paladins in that raid, four of them holy.  I wouldn’t mind this so much if they weren’t all so much better geared than me.  As it seems we’re picking up stragglers from all through Tier 4, 5 and 6 we’ve got some people with very nice gear, some for more than one spec and it is making me feel a little inadequate. I am slightly doubting whether I’m up to this hardcore raiding malarkey - I got called out twice before the raid about the lack of enchants on my gear, which is of course a very fair criticism. My main issue with the enchanting of gear is the difficulty of finding an enchanter. I seriously can’t wait till WotLK where enchants will be trade able on the auction house, once that happens you can pretty much guarantee that my gear will be enchanted up as I have no problem spending money at the auction house so simply.

After downing Maggy we got two Karazhan groups together and headed in.  As not everyone had that much time we only did the first 3 bosses. However, I’m very pleased to say that the lil Paladin wannabe - The Maiden of Virtue - finally dropped the Shard of the Virtuous and so that is one slot finally epiced out.  As I intend to get this enchanted I decided not to continue saving for the badge healing mace and instead spent it on the belt instead and also bought an epic gem to help pay for said enchants.

Overall, a pretty satisfying WoW evening. It looks like I may get to see SSC and TK once more, perhaps even Hyjal and BT one day…

Zul’Aman = Cleared July 20, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Gaming, Instances, Paladin, World of Warcraft , add a comment

Tonight I took part in my personal first downing of Zul’Jin.  This means that I’ve personally cleared Zul’Aman.  Surprisingly, the fight is kinda easier than I expected. As our raid leader was saying whilst we tried to down the previous boss, Zul’Jin is probably a bit easier.  It’s only his very last phase that gave us any trouble and we downed him at some point around attempt number 5.

Nothing interesting dropped of course but the 3 badges are always nice.

This puts my personal raid progression at

When I first dreamt of how awesome raiding must be, I never even imagined that I would get into the 25 mans, never mind all the way in to Tier 5. As things happen, it may be that I don’t get to see another 25 man until wrath.  Unfortunate drama within the guild (which I wasn’t present for and don’t really know what happened) caused a chunk of the raiders to leave and summer brought about inactivity in more.  We do have a core set of raiders big enough to do 10 mans successfully but I know most of us would love to be killing the big targets in the 25 mans. Our active raiders are trickling away but they are also being replaced. Tonights raid had two trial members in it, the same classes as the two core raiders we recently lost, and both of them seemed to perform very well in their roles so there is still hope to get back on our feet.

Chavtastic July 15, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Essay, Rants, Society , add a comment

I was just reading this article and it kinda gave me a good talking point for something I’ve wanted to write about for a while because I had heard it elsewhere and really wanted to take issue with it.

Here’s my problem, the authors of this article basically make the point that the word Chav is about class hatred, from the middle (and possibly higher I suppose) to the working class.  But the thing is, I’ve grown up as the whole concept of a Chav has been born, I’ve gone to school with them, I have been friends with them. Don’t try to tell me that some middle aged journalist has any kind of clue about what a Chav really is. I’m making a few assumptions here (I don’t know how old the writers are, or that they are necessarily journalists) but actually you can’t get that much closer to the experience than people my age so either way I’m more qualified.

A Chav is not, as this article seems to be saying, a derogatory term for the lower classes. No, it’s a social stereotype.

Now, the thing about a social stereotype is that it involves choice. Chavs choose to wear track suits and strangely angled baseball caps, ultimately they choose to do the things they are often criticized for (vandalism, teenage drinking etc), even though I know most of them have plenty of fucked up behind their actions.

Admittedly, the working class and chavness is far from mutually exclusive but it is not the same thing. So really I’m just sick of people who clearly have no clue what they are talking about putting forth their opinions to the world, trying to convince the politically correct that chav is some kind of no no. Discriminating against someone for something that is neither a fault nor within their control (eg Skin colour, social class) is completely wrong, there are no two ways about it.  The examples in the article include Faggot, Pikey and Nigger.  These are all words based around insulting someone based on something that is not only unchangeable but also is not wrong in any way. But a chav puts themselves into a stereotype, they weren’t born that way, they don’t have no choice and yes, there are a lot of negative connotations to the chav image, connotations that you have to accept when you take on that image.

As someone who is into metal, I wear darker clothes and band t shirts to indicate an allegiance, I buy into a stereotype in order to tell those around me something about myself. Usually it’s that I don’t like the same shit they listen to (which does include probably the majority of the general public’s view of metal but I deal with that).  But I’m perfectly aware of the downsides of stereotyping myself, I choose to do it though, anyone who buys into any stereotype chooses to do it and if that choice results in criticism then you just have to deal with it.

No one should need political correctness to back up their choices, you can either try and explain to others your choice or ignore what you know is their ignorance. In this case, it would seem like the ignorance is coming from those that claim to be politically correct, which, isn’t very surprising to be honest. Personally, if I felt that I were lower class (I’m not rich but come from a reasonably middle class background so I’m not really one or the other) I would be offended by the fact that this article makes the assumption that Working Class = Chav, when in fact that’s just not the way things work.

A nice Deadmines surprise July 3, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Instances, World of Warcraft , add a comment

I’m a registered Altoholic and primarly play Alliance so naturally I’ve done Deadmines a lot across many characters, and I do mean a lot. I ran my friend through it so many times to try and get twink drops for his warrior it was insane. From this long history (well, y’know, as long as it can be for just over a year of playing) I’ve come to expect the worst from your typical Deadmines PuG. So when I get a whisper from a level 15 warrior I don’t have great optimism for the potential of completing the dungeon.

It didn’t look any better once I was in the group, we had me playing my level 19 warlock alt (who I’m really enjoying at the moment), another warlock- level 18, a mage - level 19 and a level 19 ret paladin serving as a healer. Given that, I was worried this was gonna be a complete waste of time.

We actually managed to get through the whole thing, without a single wipe, or at least without a full graveyard run since we had soulstones and used some sneaky tactics. Using a combination of off tanking using my Voidwalker we managed to get through most of the situations. I was having to use every warlock tool available to keep things in check and it made for a very fun experience. The fact that it took 2 and a half hours doesn’t even bother me because it was such a satisfying experience. I was also pleasently surprised that I managed to pick up the Emberstone Staff, even despite the caster competition for it.

Who knew it was even possible to complete Deadmines with a level 15 tank (who did ding 16 during the run)?

On this note, I’m having a lot of fun on this warlock. I’ve gotten a warlock to 19 before (blood elf female, not really keen on the character and also horde side so not much use for farming) and it was alright but this time round I’m really enjoying the play style, I may actually try and keep it up, it’s good soloin’ fun