Responsibility

One of my professors mentioned that she had read an article in National Geographic that said there are no more pristine bodies of water left on Earth. I couldn't find the article to confirm, but regardless of whether or not the claim is true, it's a terrifying thought. It may have been an exaggeration, but the fact is that humans are pretty damn good at polluting, and we have the capability to pollute everything, and we are not kind to our planet.

One of the basic principles of Chinese Medicine is the concept that humans are holistic. Nothing in our bodies exists in isolation, so when you treat a patient, you search for the cause of the problem rather than just treating the symptoms. This concept is well known to most people who seek alternative forms of medicine. What is less well known (at least I was quite pleasantly surprised when I learned) is that Chinese Medicine also views the body as not being separate from the environment. The simplest way to think about it is to look at how seasons affect our health. No one can deny that the flu is more prevalent in winter and allergies are more prevalent when plants are pollinating. If you delve deeper, it becomes obvious that poor air quality will lead to a wider prevalence of lung problems, and radiation leads to more instances of cancer. Five Element acupuncture takes things a step further and takes the taoist view that all living things are interconnected and, fundamentally, we are all One. My aforementioned professor pointed out that as the earth gets less and less clean, our bodies seem to reflect that. The example she used was food allergies. More and more people are showing signs of having severe food allergies that didn't make much of a dent in the population before. I remember when they could serve peanuts on airplanes without fear that someone allergic would keel over and die because they looked at a nut. Almost a quarter of my close friends now are "glutards" - people with some degree of sensitivity to gluten, a protein found in many common grains, but I had never even heard of the issue until a few years ago. What if the increase in allergies and sensitivities are reflections of the planet on our bodies? Of course, there are other factors, such as a growing awareness and acceptance in the scientific community of food allergies, but I can't dismiss the notion that the more we damage our environment, the more we damage ourselves. We're not just leaving a legacy of environmental degradation for future generations to take care of, we're actively hurting ourselves and the ones we love with our species-wide ennui. Of course, given that we constantly fill our bodies with food that directly harms us (I'm looking at you, McDonald's), I can't say that I expect this revelation to make any dent in the world.

...which brings me to another point. The problems facing us today are overwhelming - pollution, climate change, natural disasters, war, famine, drugs, gang violence, heart disease, equal rights, oil spills, national debt, reality television, and the list goes on. When I start to think too much about it, I get downright depressed. I'm not exactly in a position of power and influence, and I can't affect change in a meaningful way, and yes, I'll admit that sometimes I think I just shouldn't bother trying. It's so much easier to shut my eyes and pretend that they're not my problems. Don't I have enough to worry about paying bills and studying for my 8 classes? Unfortunately, I can't bury my head in the sand and expect that someone else will solve everything.

I recently attended a Unitarian Universalist service in which the minister talked about responsibility. He said that most people think of responsibility in relation to power. If you have the power to do something about a problem, it is your responsibility to do so. Unfortunately, that definition lets a lot of people off the hook. I don't have the power to fix climate change, so I don't need to do anything about it. The minister offered a new definition that boiled down to - if there is a problem, even if you don't have the power to fix it, you need to do what you can, knowing that your actions alone won't necessarily change things. If enough people follow that definition of responsibility, over time, things will improve. If no one follows it, then we're all royally fucked.

So I pick my battles and do little things here and there that won't change the world overnight. Most notably, I'm eating local and sustainable food, and I hope to bring positive change to people one at a time when I start practicing acupuncture. Every time I do something that I know is the right thing to do, it gives me motivation to do another thing. I know that I will never be perfect, and my actions are a drop in the bucket. It may take time, but with enough drops, we can eventually fill the bucket.

Eating with Integrity

I'm taking a class in Five Element acupuncture (5E), which deals more with addressing PSE (psychological, spiritual, emotional) concerns than physiological problems. It is strongly stressed that as a practitioner of 5E that you live with integrity. The concept of integrity in this context is always striving to take the right action. Every time you make a decision, there is one decision that is better. Becoming aware of that and acting on it is something that I am working very hard on manifesting in my life. The problem, of course, is that that the right action usually isn't the easy action. For instance, it's much easier for me to buy lunch in the cafeteria at school than it is to pack something from home that I know is made of local, sustainable products. Granted, my school's cafeteria is 100% vegetarian with lots of vegan options, but I've seen all sorts of produce in the food that isn't in season in WA. In this case, the right action is pretty clear. It's just going to require planning.

Meal planning has never been my strong suit. In fact, my eating habits have pretty much always been based on whims. Eating local, sustainable food isn't the cheapest option (though it's cheaper than buying lunch!), so I need to make sure I get the most out of every dollar. I suppose I'm going to have to start thinking this through. Before I go to the Ballard Market on Sunday, I will have a plan. I need to prove to myself that I can afford to eat organic on a very tight budget. Time to look up recipes and figure this out.