Anna has a suggestion. Or rather, “suggestion” might not be the right word since that implies “choice,” something that I’m apparently not being afforded in the matter.
It’s about meat. It’s not only about meat, but meat being the fulcrum around which whatever ailment she’s hell-bent on fixing pivots. Her brother recently transitioned from a newbie vegetarian to stone age diet kind of guy – from tofu and sprout, to meat and red wine. Wine might be anachronistic, but the point is to exclude carbs and cooked food in favour of blood and anything red.
I’ve been vegan for so long that it’s not something that I think about anymore. And because it’s such an engrained part of my personality, this is the part that Anna suggest I shake up, shake down, shake it the fuck around.
All this to get out of a rut, as it were. To tear down and rebuild on better foundation. Also, there’s the idea that the lack of hormones and whatnots in a carnivorous diet make you lethargic, and if I drink the blood of a boar I’ll suddenly become Adonis incarnate and get stuff done and have more energy and so on.
This is about challenging yourself and re-evaluating who you are. And in my case, who I am. If you’re a docile guy, try to punch someone. If you’re aggressive, turn the other cheek.
At the heart of the matter is that I don’t like to be coerced, and while one of Annas’ great talents is to be convincingly convincing, I have a hard time fending off the onslaught of a circular argument: The reason I don’t want to challenge myself is because I’m not challenging myself. Replace “challenge” with what you wish, and it’s clear that what you need is not what you want, because you’re used to wanting what you don’t need.
I’m rambling a bit. If often takes me a while to decode the advice that my friends give me, and it’s always with the utmost hesitation and suspicion; if I’m not in a position to decide what is good for me, on what basis do I judge the value of others’ advice?
At some point you have to realise that you might be wrong, and goodness knows that I’ve dispersed my share of halfwitted suggestions and criticism to friends. I’m not sure how to properly respect the effort that goes into this kind of feedback. You get advice and get yelled at by friends because, for whatever reason, they care for you. I just don’t know how to reconcile (what I’d like to think of as) my critical judgement with an acknowledgement of lack of personal insight.