HW 17

First Thoughts On The Illness/Dying Unit:

  Death is the one certainty in life, and accepting its finality is hard for anyone. Facing one's own death with equanimity is hard for people in many situations. Much harder is the acceptance that those near and dear to one will also die, when feelings of grief and anger, and of loss and often loneliness, are inevitable. Such feelings are worse when a life has ended prematurely. In view of this, it is scarcely surprising that so many people, whether religious or not, consciously shut the concept of death out of their minds and only face up to it and cope as best they can when they have to. This pattern is particularly common in countries where death is no longer an everyday event and has become virtually a taboo subject. People in many western countries often go through life never having seen a dead body.

  A social norm on death and illness would be to ignore it, the whole out of sight out of mind theory. Both death and illness have a lot of baggage to begin with. They both bring experiences, memories, and emotions making them one of the topics that people don't talk about a lot.Plus there is a whole negative vibe that most people get from it. Firstly life is short and thats an indisputable fact. Also from the moment one is born they are dying. People fear what they cannot understand and death is not understandable Since death is forever and its also inevitable its a topic which makes people feel uneasy.                       

  In my own experiences with death it has numbed my senses towards it, partly because Ive lost a lot of people in my life.Ive been taught not to shun the idea of death and since I know its inevitable that made me want to embrace its concept rather than avoid it. That wasn't true for my whole life. The first time I lost someone I never wanted to talk about death again, but after the 4th funeral I went to I realized that this is something that just happens.

  One thing that I found really interesting was how humans view death differently from animals.One of the single most important characteristics that separates humans from animals is not that we speak, or have technology or intelligence, or use forks and spoons, but the fact that humans are the only creatures that are aware/cognizant of their own mortality. 


Thoughts:
There is an African tribe that has a saying that when interpreted goes like this: "Unlike the birds, man knows that he will eventually die; thus he will never fly free"

HW# 12

Over-Arching Thesis: Sustainable and humane alternatives to nightmarish dominant social practices in our culture fail the tests of scalability, achievability, and/or desirability  

Major Supporting Argument: Due to the changes that would have to occur in the social practices of the people and the food industry, alternatives to the nightmarish practices are out of reach

Supporting Claim #1: Although some changes have been made not enough major ones have been made

Evidence #1: Political system would have to change
Evidence #2:  People don’t want to eat healthy
Evidence #3: Prices of better foods would have to drop

Supporting Claim #2 Changes that can be made are being limited

Evidence #1: Infiltration of the food industry in government
Evidence #2: Dropping Economy
Evidence #3: Dominant social practices

HW #11

  For my final experience in the food unit I decided that I would go on a fast for 2-3 days, this depended how I felt on the 2nd day. The reason I decided to do this was that after learning from our food unit course, food nowadays is taken for granted. What I mean by this is how since food is so easily accessible (there is a Mc Donald’s everywhere) it is taken for granted; also it is very cheap adding on to how accessible food is. I also learned from one of the films that 25% of the food produced by the industry is thrown out. I decided that this fast would be a good way to experience what a large percentage of the world goes through daily.

  After taking on the assignment I thought I should make some rules so that halfway through I don’t cheat myself out of the experience. At first I was just going to eat nothing and drink nothing but when my mom heard about this she thought that if I was to get sick it would be "cumbersome" if she had to go to a doctor, so she "suggested" that I at least have liquids. So I had to change the rules, I would have liquids (water only because in a third world country I don’t think they have soda). Also I intended on "stocking up" before the fast because I didn’t know how I would do during it, but after serious debate I ate before the fast but not enough for three people. Lastly I would decide if it was going to remain 2 or go to 3 days on the second day, now I was ready to fast.

 When I awoke the morning of the fast I knew I could not eat that day, and I love to eat, but surprisingly that still did not bother me (proberablly cause in the morning I’m not that hungry). So while my siblings ate cereal I got 2 cups of water and went to school. At lunch although I was kind of hungry so I got a bottle of water and went about as usual. On the way home I spoke with one of my old teachers and told him I was fasting after telling me of a time he fasted for 10 days I felt encouraged and missed my dinner without being bothered. (What also helped was the fact that I hid in my room) I thought to myself this isn’t so hard and went to bed. The next morning it hit me like a bag of bricks, ....I’m hungry. I was able to miss breakfast by leaving for school earlier, and man I never knew I would miss a bowl of Frosted Flakes like I did. At school I knew lunch was around the corner and I didn’t trust myself, so to keep me from buying something I left my money at home even though during lunch I wish I hadn’t because I wanted to drink something. When I got home throughout the day I drunk water, but I was miserable I wanted food, I was tired of watching my friends and family eat all this food. After dinner and another 3 cups of water I decided that 2 days was going to be my limit for now, and at 12:01 I had rice and happily went to bed. My fast was over.

 A famous English novelist and critic by the name Aldous Huxley once stated that “Most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted”. Here in America food is very accessible more than we think. Here in America we don’t think about not having food because food is cheap, and food is everywhere. A thought came to mind after my fast, I couldn’t make it to 3 days but there are people who don’t eat for weeks at a time. Also during my fast water was in abundance, while in other places there is a scarcity in water. Even though America at the moment is going through an economic decline, no one is dying of starvation and our currency is holding strong. When compared with the economy of a country like Zimbabwe, which is also going through major economic issues, America couldn’t even come close in a comparison. The economic situation there is so bad and their currency is so weak that in January of this year they introduced a 50,000,000,000 note. They are now even introducing plans to issue 10, 20, 50, and 100 trillion bank notes. What made my fast have any importance at all was the fact that it helped me to get an understanding of peoples (and my own) ignorance of abundance. This is important because like Micheal Pollan tried to say in his book, it is important that people can get an understanding of what they are doing and not be ignorant of their food ways.