Being a Vegetarian in the Real World

I always hoped I’d grow up to be a brilliant something, — novelist, playwright, Olympic athlete, whatever — be loved and adored by the masses and not have to figure out what to do for money.

You’ve never heard of me, so it’s needless to say, that life strategy hasn’t panned out.

Fortunately, I have figured out what to do for money. I have a job I don’t hate with people I actually like (sometimes). By my calculations, that’s a pretty brilliant coup.

So, life is generally good, but there are things that make me crazy.

A few years ago I started practicing yoga to learn how not to let things get to me. While it’s easy to feel love and compassion for all beings in the yoga studio, it’s not so easy to bring that with you into the real world.

Yoga and meditation teach you that all is exactly as it should be in every moment of your life. It relieves you of the burden of believing we should’ve done better, we should never have failed, we should’ve kept bad things from happening somehow.

It gives you great peace, but it also makes you sound like a weirdo to some people. You find yourself talking about how meditation allows you to create a space for wisdom to enter and to know that whatever happens, it’s all OK, because we’re all part of the same whole and the true nature of that whole is eternal peace.

While I experience this awareness during yoga and meditation practice, I’ve always found it hard, if not impossible – well, let’s be honest, impossible - to translate it into my behavior outside the yoga studio and off the meditation cushion.

Driving in my car, I can’t help but tell everyone else on the road that they’re an asshole and explain why. Somehow, while driving, everything I feel during meditation ceases to exist in my brain. Even if I tell myself to have compassion for these idiots who know not how to drive, it doesn’t help. I can’t seem to reach that state of oneness anywhere but on that cushion. In fact, I probably have less tolerance for people who act like idiots now than I did before I meditated regularly. It’s a conundrum I haven’t been able to puzzle out, but I am working on it.

One thing I know for sure is it’s so much more pleasant to spend time with animals than people. Animals love you no matter what. They’re the best people.

That’s why I can’t eat them.

Going vegetarian was a wonderful thing, but telling people about it is a moment I always dread. It’s a bad situation waiting to happen.

I stopped eating meat in my early 20s and never wanted to eat it again. The longer I didn’t eat meat the more revolting the idea became.

Meat has veins in it. Blood. Bones. Cartilage. It also has poop and guts that get scooped up into the grinders when it’s being processed. And of course the unspeakable torture the animals go through in the food industry is enough to make me want to slap burgers out of people’s hands. When I see people eating meat it looks like cannibalism. The smell is more than enough to make me want to puke.

Nothing was easier than taking meat out of my diet.

Giving up fish, on the other hand, has been an ongoing struggle. And this struggle has dragged me into many regrettable conversations.

When I first became a vegetarian I was a no-meat, no-fish girl. Fish are animals too – they’re made of fish meat.

I never announced my vegetarianism to anyone but when you spend time with people, at a certain point they notice.

Early conversations about it would go something like this:

Are you vegetarian?

Yes.

Do you eat chicken?

No, chicken is meat – it’s an animal. I don’t eat animals.

What about fish?

No fish.

But fish isn’t meat, it’s fish.

Yes, fish is made of fish, fish meat.

No, it’s not meat.

The reason I’m a vegetarian is because I don’t want to cause suffering. Fish suffer when they’re caught. They suffocate and die.

What about clams? Do clams suffocate?

How would I know this, I think. But I only say, I don’t eat clams – they’re fish.

But if they don’t suffer, what difference does it make?

I don’t eat anything that had parents.

Do clams have parents?

They must have parents.

What if they’re asexual?

But they have a nervous system, so they must feel pain.

Are you sure they have a nervous system?

Yes, I lie. I’m sure. I looked it up. The truth is, I’ve never had a sudden unstoppable craving for clams, so it’s never been an issue. And why am I still talking to this pain in the ass?

What about squid?

What about squid?

Do you eat squid?

No – it’s fish.

Squids don’t have parents?

I have no idea whether squids have parents. I suspect they do, but I can’t have a reasonably intelligent conversation about it.

Look – I don’t eat anything with a face.

Squids have faces?

First, I can’t imagine the plural of squid is squids, but that’s the least of my concerns at this point. Squid have eyes and that grosses me out. That’s enough of a face. I won’t eat it.

What about carrots? Don’t they feel pain?

I’m the one in pain having to deal with you, I think, but I say, veggies might feel pain, but on a much smaller scale than a sentient being.

Then I walk away before the next stupid question I anticipate in this inspired logic – how do you know a carrot isn’t sentient – can be asked.

Being a vegetarian and giving to animal rights causes, you read a lot about the suffering of animals.

This is why I was distraught when, on the way home from work one night, I began to fantasize about sushi for dinner.

For other people it was so easy. How about sushi tonight? OK!

Not so for me.

How could I justify it? I’ve spoken to everyone I know about the cruelty of the food industry and how inhumane it is to eat animals. And here I was, really wanting to dig in to some raw fish.

I thought of the alternative, but I couldn’t stomach choking back another spoonful of canned soup. Cooking was also out of the question. I had no ingredients and I don’t know how to make anything good.

Soon after I let myself imagine having sushi I was trolling for the business card of my favorite sushi place. Yup, still in the arm rest.

But I don’t eat fish. It’s mean. It’s not right. It’s not who I am. But it’s what I really, really want …

I do the only thing I can think to do – call a friend, who I know eats fish, for approval.

I ask her if I’m evil if I eat fish.

No, you’re not evil, she tells me.

I take it as an OK from the universe to order sushi and tell myself this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. After tonight, I won’t likely want it again. I just need this one hit, then I’ll be an honest vegetarian again.

But that first hit was so good I was already thinking about ordering it again the next night. It was my one happiness in life – the ability to get takeout after a hard day’s work – couldn’t I just let myself splurge a little without beating myself up about it?

I order again the next night. Then skip a night and then order again.

Every time I eat the sushi I pray over it and thank the fish for giving their lives for my nourishment. This honestly helps with the guilt. It’s almost like I’ve convinced myself the fish and I have an agreement, and the fish are OK with it, even happy to be a part of the deal.

Now I just have to work through the paranoia that someone will find out. Wouldn’t they love to point out the hypocrisy of the sanctimonious vegetarian. No one has any compassion for us.

A few weeks after I start eating sushi again I see my friends at yoga. Catching up with one of them, she says, I hear you’re back on sushi, like I’m a rehabilitated crack-fiend having a relapse.

Word gets around fast.

I cop to eating fish again and it’s OK because this is a friend, not a colleague, and she won’t judge me for it. The people at work would not be so kind. I cannot let them find me out.

Another thing to stress over at the job.