a few thoughts of mine on food, on my own in particular

A few of my reflections on nutrition, specifically my own. I thought – let me put this out loud 🌶

A long journey with frequent changes of scenery and living conditions is a wonderful way to make any necessary transformations within yourself. Travel saturates the gaze, and frequent changes of scenery mobilize the resources of consciousness and force you to see the same world, but from different angles, places, shades, which in turn creates a constant effect of novelty. With this way of life, nothing is ever the same as before; on the contrary, everything is always new. And the energy of this changeability is like no other for changing internally. It drags you through the sea waves like a dolphin – you just have to hold on tighter to its fins and not let go!

Upon arriving in Cancun, the first thing I did was start changing my diet. At the very least – thinking in that direction. I've always had a leaning toward the topics of raw foodism, sun-eating, prana-eating, but I never had a steady and clear intention to realize it. I'd start and quit. It always seemed like there wasn't time to bother with this seemingly not-so-significant topic as nutrition. I have a naturally good metabolism; I've never felt a loss of strength, even when I overate. Moreover, I can eat as much as I want, I can do it very quickly if needed, and not gain a single centimeter of fat. But I've never liked meat, let alone lard; cheese seemed bland to me, and milk I find downright disgusting – some goat's milk, especially warm, even triggers my gag reflex when someone else drinks it near me. It's been that way my whole life, for as long as I can remember, starting from childhood. That said, I've never cared whether food is tasty or not; I'm far from a gourmand. For me, the main thing is that food is primarily not disgusting, nutritious, and not harmful. If those three conditions were met, I found such food suitable for consumption, and the rest interested me little.

I've had periods of raw foodism lasting six months, and it came pretty easily to me. At the same time, there was no gradual transition, no veganism as an intermediate stage from omnivory to raw foodism; I don't even have a favorite dish whose taste I could dream about when hungry. I also had no side effects, no loss of strength or muscle mass. I trained as always and felt only a surge of energy. That's because my diet was balanced, and I didn't forget about breathing practices – I did them every day – and maintaining a sufficient pH level must have allowed me to avoid all sorts of side effects, such as anemia.

But there have been different periods in my life when it simply seemed physically impossible to find time to figure out where and what kind of food vegans buy; it was easier for me to grab "standard" food from the store shelf and not bother my head with all those vegan intricacies. But in reality, everything turned out to be much simpler and more transparent. What I lacked wasn't time, as I thought, but sincere motivation to do it. In fact, I simply had no need for it; everything suited me fine. Why change anything when everything is good, right?

And at some point, I hit a ceiling, feeling a lack of resources to move forward. I began to feel tired at moments when I needed energy to keep doing what I was doing. After all, you can't just go to sleep and shut down simply because you're tired, can you? So I started paying attention to where I could get this energy. To do that, I looked at which areas of my life were out of balance, and in my case, it was nutrition and sleep.

I've also slept my whole life however it worked out or however I felt like it. A routine, proper sleep – it was never important to me. In any situation where I needed to carve out time for something, I, of course, stole it from sleep. But overall, that's not right; I understood that. And if your head isn't clear after sleep, it means either too little time was devoted to sleep, or it was of poor quality. There are, of course, other reasons, such as chronic fatigue – when you can sleep for a whole day and still not feel rested – periods of prolonged depression, and other psychological issues. But in my case, sleep was simply short, chaotic, and without a routine. On the journey, the sleep problem somehow resolved itself – I just started falling asleep at 10-11 PM and waking up at 5-6 AM, and it became consistent. I don't know why it happened; it happened on its own. And I must say, waking up at 6 AM really gives you the feeling that there are somehow more hours in the day; in the same amount of time, you manage to get much more done than if you were doing things in your usual lifestyle. I won't promise myself that I'll sleep on a schedule for the rest of my life (I've never liked schedules and timetables, various routines, etc., always found them dreary and robbing me of any desire to do what the schedule dictates), but living like this for a while, recovering, gathering strength – it's beneficial, no doubt about it. At least until I figure out how to start sleeping less, about 4-5 hours, and still be alert and clear-headed. That would be great – so much could be accomplished.

I also began to pay close attention to the issue of nutrition. Of course, I couldn't help but try the local cuisine – tacos (no reason not to try what Mexican food is all about) – but for over a month now, my diet has been roughly 70% raw food and about 30% vegan. I feel excellent doing this.

I've started paying more attention to energy nourishment; I've always found it practical. I mean, isn't it cool when you don't have to pay attention to such an aspect of life as eating? Or when you're, say, deep in the taiga – isn't it cool if you don't have to procure food, because you've learned such a life hack as feeding on energy directly, and you no longer have to hunt, fish, gather mushrooms, berries – why bother? How great would it be if you could somehow solve this issue, right? Of course, many people won't understand me in this regard, and here I completely understand them. After all, food for most of us is one of life's pleasures, with no reason to remove it from life just for the sake of removing it. I, too, have things I wouldn't want to remove from my life, at least not today. And there's no point in doing it without a particular need.

Personally, I came to changing my diet gradually; I was maturing for it for far more than a year, although this task has probably been hanging over me for about 10 years, waiting for me to finally get around to it. And then one day I felt sorry for my time, which I recognize as a non-renewable resource; I spend a ton of energy on cooking, on eating, on digesting – really, a lot of time goes to food. And now I see no reason not to switch to energy nourishment and plan to make this transition in the near future. As near as possible. I think it won't be difficult for me; it's long overdue.

Arthur O'Harra,
Drinking herbal tea with honey, ginger, and lime at the time of posting.

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