SELF CONSCIOSNESS
INSECURITY
GUILT

POINT 1:
People are so eager to show off their knowledge like knowledge is a competition. But we all know that the only true knowledge we have comes from our own impetus and resources.

We learn every day through our interactions with people and the world, but only some of this knowledge is considered legitimate. When we look down on other people who haven't learned the same things, we are falling victim to a shallow judgmentalism.

FOR EXAMPLE, I was eating lunch with my man, and we overheard a man talking about his PhD work on Ethiopian nationalism and it's relationship to the church. Either me or my man could have sat down right at that moment and written a thesis on howevermany hundreds of napkins on the subject. Most likely niether one of us will ever hold a degree like a PhD or speak with his glowing vocabulary, particularly because of our resentment toward the educational systems we've been exposed to. But we're actively learning through our lives.

I've found myself directing people interested in learning about Africa to the Africans in their community, while I see others directing the same people to books.

Either method is a solid one, especially when approached with the right mindset. Be careful that you don't prejudge either to be irrelevant. (I have noticed a lot of this breed of prejudging around here)

POINT 2:
What do you have to gain from judging others' level of consciousness. If someone wants to eat meat, that is their choice. It is their body. And information that's presented in nonconfrontational ways will be more likely to sway someone to adjust their eating habits.

Scaring someone into a diet change can cause someone who is uneducated about the effects of that dietary change to become very sick. If someone makes a gradual or partial dietary change, or is open to dietary change, they are moving in your (looks like I'm talkin to the veggies here, huh?) direction. Be grateful and welcome them. It's because of them, and not the core vegans, that a vegetarian diet is gaining acceptance in the first place. It's because of them that you see vegetarian options at restaurants.

POINT 3:
It is an uprising to believe in yourself and to treat those around you with respect. And it is an uprising to try to understand others before you judge.

It's about redirecting your anger. When it's directed inward, you can be so angry that you can tear yourself apart, whether it's through drugs, apathy, and unhealthy habits or through a persistent need to upstage those around you. But the true power is in making it irrelevant. Saying "fuck expectations. I'm gonna live healthy. I'm gonna treat my body right. I'm gonna treat other people with respect, and I'm gonna respect their right to make decisions for themselves, EVEN IF THEY MAKE DIFFERENT DECISIONS THAN _I_ WOULD HAVE THEM MAKE."


(This is why I'm a performance poet- so I can rant and rant and rant about these things--)



==**peace**==

"The logic of divide and rule is still valid today." Capleton

DomePoem Poets; Vibe Nation; One ppl under the spoken word

.....

"Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere"
- Amiri Baraka

http://www.okayplayer.com/guidelines

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glad you got around to it today

>>What do you have to gain from judging others' level of consciousness.

sounds kinda accepting, when i see someone doing something that is substandard within MY WAY, i sometimes care less. when they make excuses for doing something that is subpar within THEIR system, what better way to get them to refine than by showing them that?

example: say...take me, a raw foodist, instinctive eater. possessing a level of discipline most will never even want to meet and never understand unless it is actualized (practiced). trying to teach someone the ways of a raw foodist is futile, the information used is different (experience vs. impersonal usrda tables and graphs)

soooo...

why not exit my realm and go into theirs (a place i once was as a meater who has the benefit of seeing both sides of the fence) and show them why it is standing on a weak foundation withing their nutritional tradition.

this takes me away from the bias and i just become a scholar asking questions and showing people how faulty their way is. like sekou said, it only seems condescending when the person on the other end feels like shit (low self esteem, like you said earlier).

as an extremely healthy, active, rounded vegetarian of 11 years, i get blood tests

and more blood tests and more and more and more

and always i come out perfect. and i feel great. but they never believe it. because my dot is outside their weight charts and because i don't eat meat. because i don't belong to a gym. so even though i walk miles to and from work every day, they can't believe i'm active.

so i agree that experience should carry weight against charts. and it's fun to counter arrogance. honestly, i enjoy the hell out of my blood debriefings.

but usually arrogance is built on insecurity, and no good can come of exposing someones' insecurities-


==**peace**==

"The logic of divide and rule is still valid today." Capleton

DomePoem Poets; Vibe Nation; One ppl under the spoken word

.....

"Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere"
- Amiri Baraka

http://www.okayplayer.com/guidelines

BUY MY BOOK- only $6! Inbox me for details

western medicine is limited...

take a balanced diet eating meat eater and balanced diet eating vegetarian and there is no comparison at all. it's simply a matter of "doing better" if people aren't willing to do better on a fundamental level with themselves, then what can you expect on the global level? you don't see personal ongoing refinement in this culture so much as excuses/accepting type attitudes.

(((((PEACE)))))

because it's a practice built on an incomplete science that is founded on statistical likelihoods

i believe it's possible to be extremely healthy as a carnivore, but the carnivore needs to avoid heavy processing of their meat.

i don't believe everyone should be a vegetarian. but i'm grateful for every vegetarian meal that is eaten-


==**peace**==

"The logic of divide and rule is still valid today." Capleton

DomePoem Poets; Vibe Nation; One ppl under the spoken word

.....

"Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere"
- Amiri Baraka

http://www.okayplayer.com/guidelines

BUY MY BOOK- only $6! Inbox me for details

e.g. my mother ascribes to "their system" of beauty standards. when she feels subpar or ugly, or doesn't do her mascara right, i'm not gonna catch her on it. i'm gonna try to make her say "fuck them. i'm beautiful."


==**peace**==

"The logic of divide and rule is still valid today." Capleton

DomePoem Poets; Vibe Nation; One ppl under the spoken word

.....

"Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere"
- Amiri Baraka

http://www.okayplayer.com/guidelines

BUY MY BOOK- only $6! Inbox me for details

when trying to get people to look into traditional medicines, prevetable nutrition so they can stop suffering from the "common cold" every year and just accepting it. personally my views are far more on the extremist side but there are kids here so i won't say. i am also unapologetic when speaking on ways ini which others' lifestyles are affecting mine. smokers around me affect me. to have that "to each their own" metality would leave me with lung disease.

there was this representative from the taliban on tv last night talking to two americans and brought up some good points: he said it was funny that it was only wehn the media focus on the statues being destroyed did americans even care about the situation over there. and then went on to say that arms coming into the country was not the problem and that the people are affected by more than guns. he asked about the environmental pollution caused half way around the world affecting them in afghanistan. i talked about this before. what do th people in argentina do about increased instances of skin cancer now that the ozone layer is eroding near the southern pole. this is definitely not caused by their culture but by industrilized nations afar like this one. what do they do? be accepting of this lifestyle?

it's pretty sad that amidst the horrible human rights tragedies and violations happening every day to afghani women the media don't really start panicking until the statues go down-

and it's true that smoke violates your space, never are you more aware of that than when you're pregnant and your roomate and man smoke (thank the man for his elaborate cleaning rituals), and walking down the street becomes an obstacle course of fumes and smoke and "morning" sickness-

but even given all that, i gotta say it's their choice to smoke. and i'm not gonna judge them on it. i smoked for years, and i know how hard it is to quit and how easy it is to start-

just please keep it the hell away from me


==**peace**==

"The logic of divide and rule is still valid today." Capleton

DomePoem Poets; Vibe Nation; One ppl under the spoken word

.....

"Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere"
- Amiri Baraka

http://www.okayplayer.com/guidelines

BUY MY BOOK- only $6! Inbox me for details

how different is someone smoking or polluting the environment(especially if you think globally) from someone coming up and punching you in the face?

if someone assaults another, one response is defense another attack, or combination thereof. when someone is polluting an OCEAN that provides your livlihood and they know their ways are doing just that,and don't care, what do you do? accept those actions?

the thing is that things become complicated once they involve bodies. have you ever been addicted before? do you know how addiction works? do you know how hard it is to fight it?

smoking is often taken up by people who:

a.) are uneducated about it's effects

or

b.) don't really give a shit about it's effects (e.g. teenagers and/or people who don't hold their health in high regard)

smoking needs to be addressed differently if it's gonna be changed, and it's too deeply embedded globally to end quickly or easily. pollution can, in most cases, be eliminated by substitutions once the proper financial rewards are in place. but smoking....... man, that's an altogether different issue. it requires, among other things, making people aware/care about their own health more than they currently do-


==**peace**==

"The logic of divide and rule is still valid today." Capleton

DomePoem Poets; Vibe Nation; One ppl under the spoken word

.....

"Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere"
- Amiri Baraka

http://www.okayplayer.com/guidelines

BUY MY BOOK- only $6! Inbox me for details

sorry to be nitpicky, but isn't argentina a first-world, highly industrialized country? i think they probably contribute quite a bit if not as much to the ozone problem as other heavily industrialized countries. but i see and agree with the point that you are making about other people's problems affecting you... so yes, the question of where the line is drawn in letting people do what they want to themselves, needs to be drawn. course i have no answers just wanted to comment on the argentina thing and say hi to g-love.

i haven't been around much.. checked out some of the threads, good stuff going on in here... congradulations on the pregnancy.. its gonna be a lucky baby to have a mama like you! i agree with your three roots of evil.. i'm feeling all those right now cuz i've fallen into some bad slump.. wish it wasn't something that had to be worked on gradually (getting out of it) and i could just say "fuck em all" and wake with none of those demons tomorrow... it all takes work. so back to it for me. take care.

==**peace**==

"The logic of divide and rule is still valid today." Capleton

DomePoem Poets; Vibe Nation; One ppl under the spoken word

.....

"Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere"
- Amiri Baraka

http://www.okayplayer.com/guidelines

BUY MY BOOK- only $6! Inbox me for details

lol...just had to say that.

on point, girl, on point.

L.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Homer: Do you wanna change your name to Homer, Jr? All the kids can call you HoJo!
Bart: uhh...I'll get back to you...

"how u gonna tell me to mind my biz/when you lookin like somethin I need to know about?"~~de la soul

"Ignorance: The Verbal Airborne Disease" (c) my friend Ty

"writer's block is a...I mean, it's like...uh...damn." ~~Me

~~~~
http://omidele.blogspot.com/
http://rahareiki.tumblr.com/
http://seatofbliss.blogspot.com/

is mankind.

again for all us afrikans ou there, we are seen as divine first, children of the sun. this born into sin status idea is crippling. think divinely, talk divinely, be divine. PEACE

"REAL RECOGNIZE REAL, and even more than that, the fake, they REALLY REALLY recognize REAL!" -BlackThought

that makes things evil. mankind's abuse of things

think about it.

i aint talkin original sin ish.

"the root of all evils is mankind's abuse of things"
i get it, my apologies, you can tell i have issues with the original sin thing huh?


"REAL RECOGNIZE REAL, and even more than that, the fake, they REALLY REALLY recognize REAL!" -BlackThought

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Homer: Do you wanna change your name to Homer, Jr? All the kids can call you HoJo!
Bart: uhh...I'll get back to you...

"how u gonna tell me to mind my biz/when you lookin like somethin I need to know about?"~~de la soul

"Ignorance: The Verbal Airborne Disease" (c) my friend Ty

"writer's block is a...I mean, it's like...uh...damn." ~~Me

~~~~
http://omidele.blogspot.com/
http://rahareiki.tumblr.com/
http://seatofbliss.blogspot.com/

Homer: Do you wanna change your name to Homer, Jr? All the kids can call you HoJo!
Bart: uhh...I'll get back to you...


"REAL RECOGNIZE REAL, and even more than that, the fake, they REALLY REALLY recognize REAL!" -BlackThought

==**peace**==

"The logic of divide and rule is still valid today." Capleton

DomePoem Poets; Vibe Nation; One ppl under the spoken word

.....

"Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere"
- Amiri Baraka

http://www.okayplayer.com/guidelines

BUY MY BOOK- only $6! Inbox me for details

I use tell people all the time," man you gonna die from eatin' that shit" " or that shit is going to effect you later on, so throw it away." To me saying those things I said them because a) I knew meat was wrong and bad for you and b) I got tired of heads complaing. with a everyone knows meat is bad for you its no way of gettin around it, but I realized my comments didn't make them change there mind, but only drove them to eat more of it. And, with b, girls always complained " oh I'm getting fat","I can't button my jeans no more", and shit like but will go to the store and copp a cheese steak, some chicken wings, a ham sand wich, sausage egg and cheese sandwiches, or something else fatting. But, then I realized I have to let them be a product of there own work. Even though I don't like to eat it or see others eat or complain. I have to let them eat what they want. Because I know theres someone critizing me for eating veggies, fish, and turkey all the time.

"Retribution is ours, Revolution scared no more". connects email me at eyt8knuckoles@hotmail.com and label it Def.

GOD first...and the trumpet is blown

dbledeucecake(aim...hit me)
http://www.myspace.com/poetry2soul

-December is Nina Simone month, look out for it!!!