The world of shopping

[Fort Worth, November 27. Image via Getty]

When I was a teenager and I didn't have much money, and things were generally more expensive, I remember the excitement I get when I purchase something new. Despite the fact that we had a lot less than we do today, I feel we had way more style back then.  Today, shopping is such a sick hobby, I see fancy things for cheaps everywhere.  The news programs here are blasting scenes of shopping mania from the Thanksgiving weekend and calling it the greatest news of the year or such nonsense and I wonder, how did we get here?

After becoming a vegan, of which I am very proud, the next big step for me is to drastically reduce my consumption.  It makes sense right?  First no violence, then love life, preserve all life....preserve the environment....see things for what they are....see people for what they are....question everything....no more denial....fear a whole lot less....lead by example....act on principle...live with a purpose and so on it goes.  

See this is what I love about veganism, once having reached it, all those other good stuff follows and aligns....naturally.

I have recently seen this excellent video called The Story of Stuff, it perfectly describes our obsession with material goods and the damage it has cost us.  Please please please watch it.  This video brought me to my next goal:  To reduce consumption to a point I find acceptable.  So far, I have mixed success since I have yet defined where to draw the line, unlike veganism, I will have to make compromises with this one.  

It is impossible to completely stop all purchases, but at least I can shop responsibly.  As a family we have already made quite a few changes to become more eco-friendly, I have cut back a great deal on shopping, and we try to buy only when absolutely necessary. But I have made exceptions.  Recently, I allowed myself to justify some purchases to replace my old clothes which are made with animal products such as:  leather, sheepskin, fur, silk, wool, cashmere, angora, and down.  

You may think this is extreme, but the idea of killing the innocent for looks is simply unacceptable to me these days.  I have continued to use some items, but I have replaced most of my leather shoes and my sheepskin coat.  I know it isn't perfect, those animals are already killed on my account, but there are certain things I just cannot bring myself to wear anymore, so I donated them and purchased cruelty-free stuff.  

Strangely, I find shopping meaningful under my current circumstances.  It is fun to look for cruelty-free things because they are rare (isn't it sad?), it is like a treasure hunt.  I have found some beautiful pieces out there by laudable vendors and when I wear them, I feel very unique.  That's the point of fashion ain't it?  To make people notice me, the woman, and not just my clothes.        

Here are some of the things I bought:

      

Audrey coat from Vaute Couture

Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart

Vaute Couture is a small design house in New York City.  They make the most beautiful coats from recycled materials.  I have met the founder Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart, she is one amazing young lady.

I found some awesome boots too, I intend to wear them for life.  Vegan shoes and handbags are actually quite easy to find, for example, check out this Site.  I am totally done in the shoes department.

But of course, the best part about buying tall boots is that extra long shoe box.  In the end, I think we should learn from kitty cats, it takes so little to make them happy.

Well, there you have it.  A work in progress.

Jackie

On being a cynic

I am a newbie in blogging, both in writing and maintaining my own blog as well as surfing what's out there. I am enjoying the experience so far. I have visited quite a few blogs and found some excellent writers and I make a point of leaving a comment behind whenever I can. Most of my comments are positive of course. But the other day I read something which bothered me enough to break that trend, and I left a negative comment for the first time even though the writing is actually pretty good.

I am still very new at this but I am finding that writing is a great way to figure something out. I thought about this negative comment quite a bit since, because I didn't like doing it at all, but having done it made me realize something: I really dislike cynicism.

This was not always the case, I was told for many years that I am a sarcastic and caustic person, and my sense of humor was very much derived from that source. It is such an easy thing to play cool and to self promote through cynicism. But not anymore. Today I actually find it disgusting and I do not miss that part of myself one bit, even when I lost my sense of humor along the way.

This idea is not original I suppose, and I didn't figure it out on my own either. About six months ago I was listening to my favorite podcast and this woman I really admire said something like "Cynicism is so boring." That was an Eureka moment! Maybe this is obvious to everyone, but it wasn't to me. It never occurred to me to link the two, but the idea slowly grew in my head. Yeah, damn it, it is boring! Cynicism is never creative really, kinda like evil. People use it to divert personality responsibility, mask their sense of insecurity, and to deny the chance of real discussion and progress.

So am I successful in dropping cynicism out of my life? it is very hard to say. I am definitely trying, but I am well aware that I am not so witty and light hearted anymore. Perhaps the road out the land of the selfish and the bitter must be a serious one. I would love to find a way to be humorous without being negative...but I fear it may be a study of many years, decades even. I suspect it would be a worthy goal.

Jackie

The things people say

I have noticed one interesting trend on Facebook: People like to put famous quotes on their status updates. Now I must admit I am a facebook addict. This is not just some carefree pastime for me, I take my social media experience rather seriously. I take good care of my Facebook persona, I make sure my pictures are perfect and I edit my albums like I am some magazine editor, and I am very choosy over what I 'like'. I care because I think people can and do get to know me through my comments, pictures, posted links and so on, and likewise I spend the time to know my friends through theirs. So I find quotes on status updates a bit unsettling because I don't entirely know what to make of them. It bothers me that I don't see a hint of the 'friend' in the quote. Take the following example:

Exhibit A from friend: -starts- "Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact." ~ William James. -ends-

This just leaves me completely nonplussed. I would like to know if this has affected his life, I want to know what he thought of it, I do not want to succumb to an impulse of cynicism and think him sappy.

I admit this is actually my problem, because words like these make me uncomfortable. For the longest time I thought they are nothing more than pretty words at best, some pithy lines by those otherworldly types. I suppose they are meant to be seeds of ideas, packaged and delivered like in that Inception movie, messages from the wise to jolt us out of ourselves. Still I cannot help being irritated when they are thrown around thoughtlessly and impersonally, even though I try to heed the message in the end. I seriously wonder, how many people out there actually listen and change their lives over hearing someone else's punch line anyway?

But then recently, after some bizarre happenings in my life, I sort of developed a taste for reading famous quotes and feel pleasantly surprised to discover that they actually DO apply to me. At least they do now.

So I hereby compiled a list of quotes I personally live by. I have selected them because they are true and tested by yours truly. I find these sayings powerful, universally applicable, logically defensible, teachable, uncompromising, not too grand but suitable for daily wear and tear if you know what I mean. So here it goes:

(The wording below may be inaccurate but this is how I know them)

1. "What do you mean you don't want to listen to someone because she is awkward and she is ugly and she has bad breath? I would learn from a three year old who poops in diapers if the lesson is good." ~ my father

2. "Don't do nothing because you can't do everything. Do something. Anything." ~ Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

3. "If a woman dress smart, they will notice the dress. If a woman dress impeccably, they will notice the woman." ~ Coco Channel

4. "The guy who says he can't do something and the guy who says he can are both profoundly right." ~ some Chinese guy via Will Smith

5. "First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win them" ~ Ghandi

If anyone out there is interested in knowing what I do with them, drop me a line and I will gladly discuss with you ad nauseam. But now comes the real punch line...something I have come up with myself:

"I do not find pieces of a corpse delicious anymore. Oh thank you for all that is holy!" ~ Jackie

(If you don't understand my line it is because you have not read Josie the Cat post yet)

One of these days I will put it on my Facebook page and let them unfriend me all they want.

Jackie

Continuing my education

I took a graduate level management course at Stanford a while back, and I have to say it did make quite an impact on me. The course's name is Decision Analysis, and as the name implies, it focuses on how to make decisions better. It is extraordinary that we don't actually spend much time figuring out how to make decisions big or small: we do not gather all the facts, we do not look for the appropriate facts, we do not interpret the facts correctly, we do not want to listen to facts....Why? Sometimes it is because we are lazy, but most times, it is because we want to do what we want to do.

Stanford's claim of fame in this area is their program in creating successful entrepreneurs. How on earth do you do that? How do you train a bunch of kids so they can actually compete with giant corporations steep in money and experience?... You make them think critically. Hmm...

So back to this course. It is taught in the Socratic method, which means the professor pretty much answers a question by asking a question back at ya. However effective this method is, and I admit it is, you'll invariably find the teacher a pompous ass. Anyhow, in the middle of this course, he did an experiment on us students. It was basically to see how we (Stanford's brilliant students) fared when we had to: 1. reason, 2. vote.

We were presented with a tricky question, tricky because the answer appears obvious based on what we know: there is 50-50 chance of getting head/tail when tossing a coin, we all learned that in high school yeah? Even though just slightly deeper thought would immediately suggests that in this particular problem, the answer is not so simple. The students had to vote several times, and between each vote, both sides (true/false answers) were made to defend their reasoning. So basically, we all had a chance to the hear the correct answer being deduced from our fellow classmates, and each time the wrong answer was defended based on an impression we got from something we learned in high school. The arguments happened over and over again, and we voted repeatedly. The result? 85% got the wrong answer in the beginning, and after several more reasoning/vote repetition, 80% STILL stuck with the wrong answer. WOW.

Was my class particularly stupid? At the end of the experiment, the professor told us he repeated this same exercise twice each year for upwards of 20 years, and the results are always the same. He tried it on a bunch of famous CEOs as well, and he got the same result. He said, many times over the years, there were occasions when the correct answer was reasoned so convincingly that he thought for sure the jig is up, but it never does; however smart and successful his audience, they tend to vote wrong because people want to believe something they are comfortable with.

Then he made the most provocative statement of all:

"Only when I, the professor, an authority figure says something is right, did the audience take as the correct answer. Most students do not believe his/her classmate, no matter how convincing his/her argument and logic is."

That is some serious flaw in the system man! And then he said his most controversial statement:

"I should teach this to primary school children."

I suppose he means children can better learn this lesson? That they would grasp the significance and adopt critical reasoning more readily? Or perhaps it would spare them decades of worthless conditioning? That it would do the most good to the world and human progress? He didn't say. I heard this is his punch line, something he proudly states each year: he should be teaching this to young kids instead. And I remembered the murmurs in my class, it offended the Stanford students to suggest they just spend some serious money to given a lesson that ought to be learned by seven year olds.

Now, from what I can gather, this professor did not attempt to teach young kids his great wisdom. I suppose Stanford faculty is more appealing. But a few months ago, I met someone who is. Her name is Zoe Weil.

I met Zoe in an animal rights conference. I need to seriously sit down and blog about that experience one day. At first sight, she seemed to me a small frail looking lady, but she had this Jane Goddall-esque aura about her. She is the co-founder of the Institute for Humane Education, and it is an organization that focuses on providing education on today's major social issues to children by teaching them how to think. I listened to her lecture and you know what? she is saying the same thing as that Stanford prof, except she is the bigger person in my mind because she is actually doing the most good by working with children. I took a course from this organization since then, and I loved every minute of it. I paid $80 for this course with the Humane Ed, and I assure you that is way less than what I had to pay for Stanford.

Jackie

A Beautiful Farm

My parents are both turning 60 this year within months of each other. Initially my sister and I wanted to take them to Costa Rica for their birthday celebrations, but they refused to on account of being too old for such exotic destinations. So instead I took them to Farm Sanctuary in Upstate NY.

Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY is all East Coast country beauty. Rolling Hills, lush green terrain, and small quaint farm houses by dirt roads. Truthfully, my parents were not too thrilled with the idea of this place since they weren't sure what they would see and how much they would need to confront afterwards. I understand that but I have never made life easy for my parents. So why start now?

First morning we woke up to a bright and beautiful autumn morning. We stayed in a cabin within the farm. While we were having breakfast, my mother took off on her own to see the animals. A concerned kitty named Sorella found mom near the bunnies and probably thought she was lost. The cat followed my mom to escort her back to the people area so they could BOTH attend the morning tour. She meowed her commands all the way. We got to know Sorella very well this trip. She is one hell of a cool kitty.

What a thoughtful sign. If ever you are interested in seeing animals in a happy state, and not as some sideshows like a zoo or in a farm where you don't want to imagine their fate, do consider visiting a farm sanctuary. There is something very different about this place, being here makes you feel happy just to be alive. The idea is so simple, and yet so powerful. So begins our Farm Tour.

This beautiful lady here is Teresa. Every time we met her she came up to greet us. We petted her, talked to her, took pictures next to her, while the guide told us her sad tale. She, like all dairy cows,was kept pregnant constantly so she could keep up with high milk production rate of ~100 pounds a day. She gave birth again and again, but her babies were immediately taken away, to be made veal if it is a boy, another dairy cow for a girl. But in the end, mother and babies were sent for slaughter. Teresa is lucky, but not her babies. Someone once wrote of the slow oddities of cows, but I think it is only what we choose to see, we tug them away when they bellow themselves hoarse in search for their lost children.

These two are close friends. The one standing is Coco, also a dairy cow. When we met her, she was diligently licking her good friend, who was very grateful. We are taught at a very young age that animals live in a competitive world, merciless and deadly. But perhaps that is the only part we choose to see?

I wonder how they see us. So, how should we think of raping someone over and over again, then snatch and kill her babies just to steal her milk, and then brutally kills her in the end? And as if that is not enough, we do this to everyone remotely related to her. She must sees us as the devil himself! But the unbelievable part is, she befriends us instead.

Sorella the kitty was one of our tour guides. She was with us when we visited the cows, in fact she led the way. She was very dedicated to her job, we've quickly discovered that she gets snippy if you try to pet her while she is working. She is one of the staff thank you very much! You don't just go pet the guide do you? We were amazed at the professional pride of this kitty. Our human guide told us this was part of her daily routine, to give tours. But we found out later she goes far and beyond her morning duties.

The blazing sunlight gives a beautiful view of the farm. The history of Farm Sanctuary is one of true inspirational tale. Do check out the book and film. Today, Farm Sanctuary has grown into an important animal advocacy group, but it has a humble beginning. It was originally funded by sales of vegetarian hotdogs at Grateful Dead concerts. The first animal rescued was a sheep named Hilda from a pile of dead animals in a stockyard. Since Hilda, Farm Sanctuary has grown into two large farms, one in Watkins Glen, NY, and another in Orland, CA.

Ah the pigs. In this farm, pigs have plenty of room to roam around and we curiously watched them mud bathe. First of all, they are freakishly huge. They are bred this way. And second, their eyes are very human like. The pigs you see in the pictures are from one family, mother and four piglets. The mother was a breeding sow in a hog farm. One day there was a major flood and many pigs drowned trapped in their crates. But this lucky mom managed to escape and found a place to give birth and protected her piglets all on her own. Pigs are very intelligent and resourceful, even in the most terrible circumstances.

Now the whole family lives happily and we hear them call out to each other in the mornings. In the hog farm, pigs are put into crates so small and crowded they go insane, which is why it is standard practice to cut off their tails (without anesthesia) to avoid biting brought on by sheer boredom. People ask me sometimes, don't you miss bacon? Well, yes. But then I think of being trapped inside a cage in a pool of my own excrement scared to death with no hope whatsoever, and I think differently right away. It works every bloody time.

My mother was quite affected by what she saw. I think she can relate as a mother much more than I can. When she got home, she said she will most definitely quit eating goat and lamb. This picture shows why. The goat's name is Gloria, we were told she is famous. Gloria took an instant liking to mom and came up to nuzzle. Gloria was rescued from a racetrack after being tied up for eight years, so we are told Gloria can be socially awkward with others, but we didn't feel it, she was all sugar.

So we saw a young man who worked in the farm, and we chatted him up. He said he had worked in Farm Sanctuary for five months, and then he added, "But I will work here my whole life." I thought that was a strong statement, I don't think I can say that about any job. I asked him which was his favorite specie, and he answered, "Turkeys for sure. They always surprise me." He carried a walkie talkie, and off he went to see to some goats. When we visited the turkeys, they were rather shy. They wouldn't let us touch them. But I found that if I stayed still, as sure as eggs is eggs a turkey will come check me out. They are inquisitive and stately birds.

We visited the ducks and chickens the last. Most of the birds were rescued from factory farms as egg layers, broilers, and froi gras ducks. We saw them out and about in little groups, just enjoying the day. This rooster came up to me, and he had beautiful plumage, so I took many photos of him. He was rescued from an egg laying operation. Since he was born a boy, and therefore useless for an egg farm, he was dumped in a garbage bag together with hundreds of male baby chicks to suffocate. And if you think that is cruel, that is already the humane method. I dare say death is preferable to what happened to the hens though, they suffer a worse fate if that is possible.

We came back from the tour with a heavy heart. We sat in front of our cabin and talked. Sorella kept watch on all the guests, it was her duty to keep us comfortable and entertained. Our neighbor told us Sorella knocked on their door in the middle of the night and they thought it was a break in, they almost called 911. It turned out the sweet cat only wanted to sleep on their bed.

As night approaches our conversations livened. We talked to many who works in the farm. Most of them are just starting out in life, and I envy them. And when the staff left the People Barn after a day's work, we sat admiring the twilight together with Sorella.

I have traveled all over the world, and I proudly thought of myself as a worldly person. But now I feel I actually know very little of the world other than some trivial facts about ruins and temples and cities. I only went out to seek exciting things, I didn't really go out to see anything. I danced in night clubs, drank good wines, ate famous dishes, saw exhibits in museums. But this trip is a very different kind of travel. There is no TV, internet, or spa treatments. Just night skies full of stars, good company, stimulating conversations, and Sorella by our side.

On our final morning Sorella introduced us to her friend Tank. Tank is a rescued Rottweiler. Despite the bad reputation of his breed Tank is as sweet a dog as can be. The lady he lives with said to us, "Tank is not aggressive because he knows who he is, he doesn't need violence to prove himself." What an interesting idea! I think that explains it. If we know what we are about, and not feel afraid, we won't need violence either and speak up when we see something is wrong. If we aren't so damn scared, we would say enough is enough and go on to do the right thing.

So long Farm Sanctuary, we will be back next year. I hope you enjoyed reading my story and please drop me a line. And if you get a chance, do visit Farm Sanctuary, you won't be disappointed. Thank you.

Jackie

A Romantic Thought

Picture taken from site

I've read a cute little book back in college called Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. It is a fantasy book about a two dimensional world, and in it the inhabitants are various two dimensional shapes, such as a square. In this world, the more edges and perfect symmetry you have the greater your status, the highest being a perfect circle. It was clever, farcical, and sexist. Women are lines (one dimensional) with sharp pinnacle points on both ends and they are sometimes known to stab and kill their two dimensional husbands in fits of feminine misunderstanding and then forgets about it.

Anyway, there is a moment in the book when a promising pentagon-shaped child questions if there is the possibility of a third dimension, which he could not envision however hard he tries. I would like to think of the universe the same way. Everything from laws of physics, life, free will, chaos, music, light. It is a comfort to know that the universe holds more secrets than I can possibly discover, such as another dimension I cannot fathom. This ensures that in life, possibilities are endless, forever stretching, even if my imagination ceases to follow. And it puts out there the hope that if I am wise, the universe may unravel its secrets a little, just for me. And if I remain humble, I would see it in the end, a spectacular sight it will be.

Jackie

No thanks, I don't need a bag with that

Today my husband wanted to buy something at a clothing store, and it was an item already packaged in a plastic wrapping. As usual when he went to pay, he said, "No thanks, I don't need a bag with that." It was a small gesture in minimizing the enormous amount of waste we generate, a practice we have very recently adopted based on the totally defendable common sense of why waste another plastic bag to wrap something already packaged? or so we thought. But to his surprise, the sales lady replied with a snide remark, "Good for you, you've just saved a plastic tree."

Now, what kind of response is that? My husband drove home thinking he should NOT have purchased the item in the end, he kicked himself for being too polite that instant. We discussed it at length afterwards, it was a very strange response after all. How did that offend her enough to say something like that to a customer in a bad economy? But then I have seen it before, or at least something very similar. I am not sure about this particular sales lady, but I have heard from others who thought it unAmerican to recycle or conserve. People got offended.

My former cube mate Scott for example, he drank water only from plastic bottles, and although my company had a decent recycling program, he insisted on throwing his bottles into the trash even when the blue bin was immediately next to the garbage can. He told me that was the American thing to do. I suppose he meant that it is the right/duty of Americans to consume. Now, Scott is born American, but the strange thing is, many immigrants I know are anti-recycling as well, and for similar reasons. I have many friends who came from India and China where conserving resources was part of life, but many told me that it was no longer necessary because they are now in America. I may be able to understand this if we are talking about a bunch of uneducated folks, but these are all highly educated professionals I am mentioning.

I suppose what I am saying is entirely anecdotal, and perhaps my perception is skewed, unfair, and inaccurate. But when I travel, I have noticed the difference in attitude a great deal. I lived in Germany for a year and I have seen the efforts people made to conserve energy and recycle, and for the most part, they don't have to. Over there, you get mildly uncomfortable when you throw out trash before first separating the bottles, cans, and papers in front of the neighbors. So is it the system and the government? or is it the individual? In the end, I suppose there are very few people in the world who are actually doing enough, and I think most people, including myself, throw things out when we shouldn't. But still, I think something is seriously wrong when deeds as simple and good as reducing consumption and recycling is under attack anywhere. Just a thought.

Jackie