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A more realistic look: The best thing in the world August 8, 2008

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

In case you hadn’t guessed, this post is a follow up to my last post “The best thing in the world“.  My idea here is to look at it in a more realistic way, to look at the problems associated with it, what might stop it from coming true etc.

First of all, it’s important to note that I wouldn’t have produced a post on something I knew to be impossible to happen.  I’d love to be able to fly but I’m not gonna dedicate much time to that because it’s never really gonna happen, unless they invent some kind of commercial jet pack type system.

Given that I need some kind of way of working through the different things I’ll start at now and move forward.

The underlying realism is of course, everything here assumes that at least the majority of us stay friends.  As it was pointed out to me, it’s very unlikely the group will look exactly the same in future years but at the same time it’s pretty unlikely that it will look all that different either.  The same person that pointed that out also pointed out that we are at a prime point in our lives to make lifelong bonds and the evidence that is possible is all around.  One post I have yet to write will perhaps look at that a bit further.

So, Road Trip ‘09.  Overall looks quite good, we should have a decent number of drivers by then and a few cars to boot.  The only real issue comes to parental consent, which for most of us isn’t a big problem but it only takes one person to mean we can’t do something because we’re not gonna be leaving anyone out.  I’m pretty confident we can get around this issue one way or another, even if it does require some pretty heavy bargaining.  It also requires a certain amount of general planning which will most likely be left to just a couple of people but this is nothing too difficult.  We can get through it, I’m sure.

Then comes Ski ‘09/2010/2011.  The dates are a bit vague because we’re not entirely sure whether we would require everyone to be 18 before we could pull it off. Again, this is basically a parental thing but understandably taking people into Europe is substantially  more difficult in bargaining terms.  Although actually, it could be easier organization wise.  The idea is to get some kind of package holiday, probably with a chalet, and lets face it, package holidays are pretty simple things.  That’s the beauty of them, everything is pretty much sorted for you.  Originally I had worried that some people might not be too keen on going but so far results from the Sideroom Survey show a great deal of support for the idea of a ski trip and convincing the unbelievers shouldn’t be too hard.

Hurdles of the next few years.  The most obvious particular hurdle is the university one.  Although I chose to go to Nottingham to stick with the band and with my friends, Nottingham was where I had my eye on for a long time anyway and it is a pretty good university.  Top lists puts it near the number 10 in the country, so getting in there is definitely something to be proud of.  Of course, we don’t know until I have my results that I am actually gonna get in there.  Anyway, the point is that the others in the group that will likely go to university may not want to/be able to go to Nottingham or Nottingham Trent.  There are other reasonably local choices though so it shouldn’t be disaster but it’s a point in the future where there is potential for trouble.

The next hurdle comes at the end of university, when our freshly degreed up comrades go out into the world to look for work.  This search for work could indeed drive them accross the country, or even potentially to different countries entirely.  It depends entirely on who goes where doing what exactly what we’ll do about this.  There is basically no planning that can be done, other than to be aware of it’s existence and to sort of know that 5 or 6 years from now is a critical point in our friendship.

University has the added hurdle of a whole new friendship group that will mean time split between the new people and us old reliables.  I hope that everyone will understand this, it’s likely to happen to all of us (as long as we do something, if some of us never get jobs and just leech at home then they are gonna suffer from this and never really benefit) and that we can still use the crew as something of unloosable friends, even if we don’t have all that much time for maintenance of those friendships.  Still, I imagine we can handle that, given that our beginnings are based in something that has a long distance element.

Then there’s gap year excursions, which are a possibility for many of us and could put a bit of stress on things.  Not too bad though, I would think it wouldn’t be too challenging.

Once we’re through all that, the risk is simply that we may have been dragged too far accross the country for reasons of work, work of significant other, family or something I haven’t thought of to really enact quite what we were thinking of.  I don’t think by any means we’d stop being friends, really, if we get past all that then I doubt there would be much short of illicit affairs that could pull us apart.

Despite all this, I remain optimistic. In fact, there isn’t anything there that is too difficult to overcome, my idea here was simply to recognise the difficulties ahead so that I (and anyone else of us that reads this) can be a bit more prepared.

It’s an interesting life we’ve got ahead of us…

The best thing in the world August 2, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Life, Ramble, Thoughts , 10 comments

It’s worth warning that this post is likely to be an ill conceived and put together load of rubbish. However, it remains truthful in defining my desires and that is all I really want to convey.

The best thing in the world is far from universal, for some it may be success or riches for others, a big family and loving spouse.

I guess really, I’m not all that far away from those standard dreams, except perhaps in how specific I am.

I know that really, the chances of the best thing in the world happening are low but I also know that I’m going to do everything I can to make them happen.

So what is it then? What is the best thing in the world?

It’s a future, surrounded by my friends, our families intertwined. It’s difficult for me to describe exactly what’s in my head when it comes to this but I’m going to try.

The best thing in the world starts with the preservation of what I have now. What that is may well be a few steps away from perfect, or more specifically, a good few miles accross the county. There are other things but that doesn’t stop life as it is now being the best that it has ever been. I don’t want to lose any of that and for the moment I don’t see any obvious reasons why it would be lost. This is, of course, something I have thought about, I can’t dream of the best thing in the world if I can see obvious road blocks, if that thing is out of reach.

Of course, there are always unpredictable events, things that test people beyond the strains of day to day life. All I can do when it comes to these occasions is to fight as best and hard as I know how to maintain things.

Given that foundation, I want to grow something special. So far, I’ve seen a decent chunk of it in my head. When those images flood my mind, I can’t help but feel excitement and happiness that I’m not sure I ever knew existed. The people who have come into definition in less than the past half year are nothing less than family to me. Of course, I have blood relatives but unlike some people, they aren’t really located anywhere. My actual family have spread themselves accross the globe. Kinda handy if I ever want to go traveling but to feel a sense of unity and home it’s not so good. So a guy has to think on his feet.

There’s a reason why we’ve assigned each other roles in our group family and ultimately it comes down to a feeling of family. I have no other better way to describe these people and I can’t think of anything more appropriate. It almost seems to hasty, and in some ways it is. I just did the maths, on average I’ve known each person 4.25 years, although not been friends with them for all of that period. It’s long enough I think.

I have been tentative with this so far because I’ve jumped to conclusions about stuff like this in the past and ended up disappointed but barring anyone holding up large lies I don’t think anyone has intentions of breaking off from this.

For all I’ve said so far I’ve not really said much about the best thing in the world. Or at least, it might not seem that way. Most of what the best thing in the world comes down to preservation and my biggest fear is to lose what has been given.

But anyway, I’ll continue on as if I get my way, as if things don’t go wrong.

In the nearer future, the best thing in the world involves doing things. Traveling, playing music and relaxing in various locations. One thing I really want to get going is a Skiing trip. It’s gonna have to wait a few years due to the ongoing grip of parents. One of the downsides of hanging around with people mostly younger than you is that you can do things way before they can although honestly it’s more down to how relaxed the parents are. I will get us out there though, there’s little more I want to share with my friends than skiing. The closest of trip possibilities comes next summer, which I really wish was this summer since I’m getting some serious beach cravings but a guy can’t have everything.

I would like for opium toad to be established enough for us to be able to travel around playing music but I don’t really expect any fame or fortune on a large scaled. It would be nice, as a band we’ve agreed we want to take it as far as we can, it’s just a matter of how far that limit is.

That’s part one of the best thing in the world I suppose, although I never really thought about it like that.

The next part is probably the most important. It involves the rest of my life really. The best thing in the world is to keep my friends to close, to find the perfect girl, to have kids and be uncle to the children of all my brothers and sisters. It’s quite a lot isn’t it? I get the feeling these aren’t the normal thoughts of a nearly 18 year old.

It’s difficult to really describe in any more detail than that, it’s not like these images come with a handbook. They are just what I want from life, getting them may prove more difficult.

What I would really love to do is to create a community in itself, containing our intertwined families, giving our children people and places to call home, much larger than that of your average child.

In an ideal world, we would find more people to join our group of varying nationalities, backgrounds and beliefs but even if the group didn’t change at all between now and this future I would still consider it to be the best thing in the world.

I’m not sure there is a great deal more to say on the subject, or more specifically there’s probably a whole load I could say but mentioning anything more specific is getting into the realms of the purely silly.

Anyone reading this would have a right to be skeptical about the possibility of this happening and yes, it is rare. But it does happen.

Why not us?

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…

Crazy days June 22, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Life , add a comment

Friday was a pretty intense day. I’m not going to go into any sort of detail because that wouldn’t be fair for those involved.

This post could have been filled with talk of slip n slide water fight fun but as it happened the day turned a different way.

Things were left in state that threatened our friendship group, something that has brought me much happiness of the past few months. I’m hoping that given the circumstances of the day things will return to a close to normal situation shortly although things may never be quite the same.

The Penultimate Day June 18, 2008

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

This is the day before my last exam.  By tomorrow lunch time all the worrying, the procrastination and sporadic work will be over and I must simply wait.  Wait to find out my fate, to find out what I have the horrible feeling I already know the answer to.

I really don’t like this feeling…

That time June 16, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Life, School, Scraps , add a comment

Tomorrow begins my final week of exams.  My most important week of exams.  The exams that could well decided my future.  Unless the universities decide they suddenly don’t need grades they will decide my future.

Let’s just say I could definitely be more prepared.

Of course, times like this make me all looky at my life time.  And listen to music at a higher than normal volume, that too.

There is really no point worrying, I know this, it doesn’t really seem to stop me doing…whatever it is I’m doing.  At least once this is over I really have very little to worry about and I think it’s about time I got some worry free moments.  Well, I have to find myself a job but that’s another story.

One nice thing at the moment is that I have been given the job offer by my Ski resort so that is one more hurdle down, only one big one and one small one left.  The big one is the visa process.  Gee that’s gonna be fun…