Conscious Choice: Never Say Never

July 2008 | From the Publisher

Never Say Never

Really, it should be: “Never say always.”

What a crazy journey life can be when we stay conscious and plugged in. I have recently been reflecting on the people I have been throughout my life in order to get to the person I am now. I am content. I used to get “contentment” confused with “complacency.” I know now that contentment is completely different, and quite wonderful. Contentment for me is pro-active; complacency is passive.

For many years I was a junkie for any book promoting a more enlightened existence. Everything I read, I believed and put into practice. I voraciously read Chopra, Watts, Kabat-Zinn, and dozens of others. Not everything I read was useful. Though, at the time, I would always practice this or that zealously. Eventually the literary catalog of enlightenment got all jammed up, and I put down those books for lighter reading.

For many years I followed a complex variety of spiritual paths. “I will always be a Buddhist.” Then, “I will always be a Taoist.” Then, “I will always be a Universalist.” I even tried, “I will always be an Episcopalian.” I toyed with ideas of joining ashrams, following gurus, and joining a seminary. Every time, I thought the same thing: “This is it! How could I have not known this before?” Eventually, I got overwhelmed by it all. Now I am simply and very broadly spiritual.

And relative to the content of the current issue of Conscious Choice, I have followed many paths of food consumption. I grew up in a farming family. Lots of meat and good veggies and not much, if any, store-bought food items were what we ate. Mostly just good, whole, organic, free-range, grass- fed, nest-laid food. Nothing was sprayed, dyed, enhanced, drugged or altered. Well-rotted manure and compost were the fertilizers. When we had meat, my father or uncles raised it or caught it on the end of a line. I never saw a feed lot. We canned, dried and preserved. We milked by hand, churned butter by hand, made ice-cream by hand. Mostly, the farm animals seemed very happy and stress-free. When required, the animals were dispatched as humanely as possible.

However, that last part I did not like so much. Really, I don’t think I liked or appreciated any of it. So when I read my first book touting vegetarianism, I was always going to be a vegetarian. Then, I read John Robbins, and I was always going to be a vegan. I was macrobiotic. I was a food-combining genius. I was in and out of lacto-ovo; I would not use film or wear leather and was highly suspicious of inert things that could have possibly had animated origins. Mostly I shopped very carefully and stayed a little too lean. And I was always going to be that way. Now I find myself back on a farm practicing many of the same things from my youth. What I have to eat is what I have to eat, and I bless it all.

The moral of the story is: I think many of us are too hard on ourselves. I do not think I am a failure at all of the things I was always going to be because I am not those things now. The segues I have made have served to enrich the person I am now. I was a lousy Episcopalian vegan trying to meditate or practice yoga for an hour a day. However, I am now much more conscious of our planet and the impact our daily life decisions make upon her. I have my life lunch-box packed with knowledge, practice, spirituality and good food. It all adapts from day to day and season to season. I am convinced it will always be that way.

I want to hear from you. Email me your thoughts.

— Richard McGinnis, Publisher

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