It’s a good day to weigh value systems and lifestyles.
Sounds judgmental, Bill. A waste of time and a waste of electrons. You know very well that we’re too busy and far too important to read your screed, yet you insist on inviting us to your frugal table. Why do that?
I don’t know.
Freneticism. An active lifestyle, branded on gross national consumption — consumers playing a complacent role toward a dismal goal.
Michael Ende’s classic novel Momo explains it well. Ende knows his Zeitdieben (time thieves) — those functionaries who siphon the productivity of persons more innocent, more gentle. Quite a fine book, if you have the time.
Do con artists ever have a hidden agenda? Just an idle question.
May we remind you, Bill, there is more money in beef than in beets. Jobs from sea to befouled sea, that’s what we’re talking about. Filling waste-management positions, artery pharmaceutical rep salaries, butcheries and slaughterers, belly futurists, hide sellers, Boeuf Taco artisans.
Meatism: a lifestyle based on flesh and blood, unfertilized eggs, calf milk, buttered bacon, Snausages® all nicely appointed on a dinner plate. Marketers know their play-books, how to drone a message into your psyche, how to grant you the illusion of independent thought — you are the one doing the thinking. Something to manufacture a lasting crave, powerful enough to drive you from refrigerator and pantry to the supermarket and back. Where are the car keys? The 12-hour Energy Boosters®?
Consume, c o n s u m e, C O N S U M E, c o n s u m e, consume.
The lab gals and guys have skills honed to fashion biochemical ions that stimulate taste receptors and simulate well-being. Palm oil fuels a munch crave. Be they chips or be they crisps — an open bag is an empty bag. Palm oil substitutes for hydrogenated oil, but threatens rainforests.
You’re a do-gooder and a poison-ivy hugger, Bill. Let us buy you an ivy salad. Our treat.
Buy another bag. And aren’t you clever now — buy a bigger bag or two, or five. Buy ten bags and save ten dollars. The more you buy, the more you save.
Wow. Where are the car keys? The 12-hour Energy®?
A dinner plate is a wasteland, absent a meat entree to grace it, my friend. We did not evolve to nibble bunny salads and sip miso soup. Let us tell you about tired emaciated vegans. God made animals for us to domesticate and to eat. F-ing cows were not created in God’s image. We are not Bottom-headed — and we’re not bottom feeders.
Of course.
Thanks for reading.
billziegler1947 
Bill, this post says it all and irrefutably so — to any who care to think for themselves. And too, with a style and wit that few can match. Well done, indeed.
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What a great post. So well said and in such an interesting, entertaining way.
You do have a gift with words and a truly awakened mind. Thank you.
Thanks for the book recommendation also, I must check that out! I’m always up for a book suggestion, so thanks.
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Hi outsidersinsides, Readership is gentle privilege joined to mindful responsibility — I take both aspects quite seriously because each is judged by the heart. Please know that your kind response encourages enormously. Connecting with a tiny gathering of kindred souls through some curious parsing of electrons is magical stuff.
And thank you for noting the inspiration I receive from Michael Ende. *Momo* is available in many languages — German in the original. I read it about 20 year ago, but its lessons became formative and inspire me still.
Thanks for every and each kindness 🙂
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You are very, very welcome. Your words mean a lot.
I too really appreciate the ‘tiny gathering of kindred souls’, it means a lot to me, and everyone I read and admire inspires me greatly and the connection is kind of magical and I need it.
The book looks so interesting, I shall be getting that. Thank you.
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I am honored to join with a tiny gathering of souls. It really does amaze me to find all and each here. It lightens my spirit to encounter the outnumbered and the numbed — such a small percentage of our society speaks for the inalienable rights of each sentient being tortured and processed as resource-lives for appetite or whim: the cost of voracious greed and folly.
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Me too, it cheers me muchly to share with evereyone here and find myself understood and recognized, in so many personal and interesting ways. It helps, it really does. It ‘lightens my spirit’ too, in the face of horrors every day. ‘The outnumbered and the numbed..’ nice!!! Like that!! Thank you.
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Thanks for the kind compliment. I’m always looking for patterns in the words as I write — actually even when not writing, such as colors and numbers, as in this post from last March:
https://billziegler1947.com/2017/03/18/read-by-number-or-color-by-number/
Little surprises that show up unexpected but appropriate. I’m so happy that you appreciate it.
Thanks for reading. 🙂
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I love things like that; anything about patterns and connections, just amazes me; anything like the Fibonacci sequence and Golden section, all those patterns and connections repeated throughout everything; the body, nature, the cosmos, mind-boggling!!! Language is fascinating too and thanks for the link, I read your post, amazing and wonderful. You are so prolific, I have so much catching up to do! I’m so glad you share all your strange, odd, fascinating wisdoms. It lightens my day!
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Lightening a kind soul’s day lightens my spirit. Those sequences are the stuff of so much wonder, and a reminder of how connected everything is. It should bring pause, reflection, humility and gratitude for this planet. The Cambrian Explosion endlessly fascinates me — it really was an explosion of evolution.
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I come on here to connect and find comfort, it means a lot to me, it really does. So keep your words coming.
Connection, exactly, it’s there for everyone to see isn’t it, everywhere ? But they don’t.
It should bring all those things, it really should, but it’s sad to see the vast majority hold none of these finer characteristics, what a different world we have if they did!
I haven’t heard of the Cambrain Explosion, fascinating, I must look that up, as I have said before you are an amazing mine of information!! Thank you…
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Would it be OK if I cross-posted this article to WriterBeat.com? I’ll be sure to give you complete credit as the author. There is no fee; I’m simply trying to add more content diversity for our community and I e5njoyed reading your work. If “OK” please let me know via email.
Autumn
AutumnCote@WriterBeat.com
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