Vegan Food, A Beginner's Experience

My topmodel girlfriend and I recently attended a cookery course. A vegan cookery course.

All in all, it was interesting, but not exactly convincing. Ultimately, the revelation was that vegans can eat somewhat tasty food, but it pales to dark shades of grey in comparison with actual, delicious, omnivore food.

Let's start with presentation. I've been convinced for quite some time that vegans are physically incapable of making their lifestyle look good. I know that there are plenty of delicious vegan recipes out there - but the way most vegans present their cause makes it seem like a dull, new-agey, moralistic affair. If I book a cookery course at a local education center, I don't need to be proselytized. I know all the arguments already. I just want to cook, learn some fundamentals about vegan cooking, eat some good food, and generally have a good time. More specifically, I really don't need a rant against microwaves (not related to veganism in the slightest), Monsanto (somewhat related, but still not the point), dairy (the antichrist and Klassenfeind of practically every alternative ideology of nutrition).

In short, if you want to pitch your food to me, then seduce me with its delicious taste, not with various intellectual and moral reasons for why I should accept second-rate dishes.

Since we're talking about the food itself... well.

The first recipe that really stood out was a vegan "meat ball" thing. It was funny because the teacher insisted it tasted "almost like real meat balls", when in reality it had nothing whatsover to do with real meat. It's always funny when people who have not actually tasted meat in 5 years think they know how it tastes, and think they know it better than a notorious carnivore such as myself. But still, this recipe made it into our treasury. It's easy to do, (somewhat) good for your health and extremely tasty, especially if you combine it with a perfectly non-vegan, dairy-based garlic dip.

The second one is more of the "fascinating" variety. They called it "vegan mousse au chocolat". To be honest, if you served that thing to me in a restaurant under that name, I'd probably sue you for fraud, gross misconduct and crimes against humanity. It's based on avocados, chocolate (big surprise), and dates. I mean, it actually tastes just fine, I might make it for myself some day. I ate some of it this morning as a bread spread. It just doesn't have the intensely chocolate-y, fluffy, deliciously unhealthy qualities of my cream+eggs based mousse au chocolat.

You can get by on vegan food. You can survive, probably even without getting deprived of B12. If you really want it, and are prepared to put in the hours of searching, you might even find a few recipes that are genuinely great. But if you're a real connaisseure, a gourmet with a deeply rooted love of extremely delicious food - those soy and almond milk recipes just won't cut it.

Prescriptions are guidelines

One thing I've learned (again) this week is that practice prescriptions are mostly just guidelines.

I came across this prescription for a tantric exercise. What it said was that I should lift my legs in the air for a certain amount of time, clench the PC muscle for 30 seconds and then flutter it for 10 etc.

I have let go of most of it. Keeping track of the time makes no sense in a tantric exercise, because it is just a distraction. What does matter, though, is the essence of it: Approximate, by breathing and muscle tension, what happens during orgasm, without ever touching yourself - and you'll experience all kinds of wonderful feelings. Experiment with your rhythms, develop your own style, and don't be fooled by metaphysics.

I actually do have more energy now. I'm getting my latest narrative finished, after 2 tough years. I stand up earlier than I used to, with less problems, and I'm not so sleepy at night. Even though this is a time of rather hard job demands and a firm and tense timeline.

Definitely awesome, this.

Negative Chakra Manipulation

When reading up on chakras and other energy systems, it occurred to me that to every effect, there is usually a counter-effect. For example, if the root chakra is related to digestion, and an opened-up chakra is said to let the energy through, thereby making for good digestion, a closed-down root chakra should imply indigestion. And if there are techniques to open up those chakras, are there also techniques to close them down?

It should be very interesting and enlightening to have some energy healer try to make a subject constipated from a distance.

Additionally, there are BDSM folk out there, and there are energy healing folks. There has to be an overlap. I wonder if ever anyone has tried to incorporate "negative chakra manipulation" in their power exchange games? If you know anyone like that, please give me a heads-up!

God Is A Bad Script Writer!

Interestingly, the gospels are written like a generic, run-off-the-mill hollywood script: There's three acts (childhood and backstory - the year(s) of ministry - passion, death and resurrection). There's tension and conflict in each. There is the obligatory plot point right before the end - Judas' betrayal, and the crisis that follows. There are obstacles to overcome, friendships to be started, there is struggle and betrayal and death. There is ultimate triumph.

The whole thing even has the "breaking of the umibilical cord" scene, when Jesus runs away to debate the clerics!

So, the question is: Is god just an unimaginative hack of a script writer?

"Why People Are Negative, Pessimistic And Skeptical"!!!1111

Link to original article by Stefan Pylarinos:
http://projectlifemastery.com/why-people-are-negative-pessimistic-and-skeptical/

So, one of my favourite internet entrepegurus is at it again. Only, this time, he's addressing his critics. Me being one of those he nonchalantly banned from his youtube channel for speaking my mind, the idea of replying is just a little too seductive. So here goes...

The whole article is a rather clumsy attempt at deflecting criticism. Most of it is so ridiculously obvious, I would feel embarrassed to go into the details. Everyone who criticizes Pylarinos, has to be a negative person full of fears. Yeah, it's that primitive, and it wouldn't bear mention, except that there are two congealed pieces in all that bile that play with ideas rampant in new age and self-help circles, and so I feel they need to be addressed, time and time again.

Both are present from the very first sentence on - the article's very title, indeed: "Why People Are Negative, Pessimistic And Skeptical"

This is a very strange combination of words. Skepticism has nothing to do with the other two qualities. Skepticism is neither a character trait or a psychological disorder. It is simply the idea that claims should be supported by evidence. If you bring the case of skepticism up against me - well, here I am! Of course I am being skeptical. You can either show that your method works, point to independent, peer-reviewed research to support your claim - or chances are it simply doesn't. That's really all there is to it. Sure, you can try to show that this is not the case for this one very special extraordinary claim - but then you'd have to present the evidence for that...

Actually, if you're a self-help guru, you'd have to come up with even more evidence, since you'd not only have to show why your method works, but also why it works better than the gazillion of other methods out there.

The other point is a bit more subtle, and way more insidious: People ARE negative. Negativity is a character trait, a personal wrong - in short, a sin. Voicing criticism is a surefire sign that a person is afflicted with that sin. Because a positive person will always find something positive in everything.

It's insidious because it plays to the insecurities and vulnerabilites that are rampant in virtually all of humanity. Even more so because everybody is bound to know a few instances of things where they honestly can't find anything positive, as hard as they may seek.

And this insane idea - that criticizing someone or something is inherently bad - has been instilled in a crazy number of children by their parents, school teachers, the church, the military, politicians, and so on and so forth. It's incredibly easy to exploit, especially if you add a little group dynamics and the ever-smiling, suave and kind coach guru who - ostensibly - only does good, with all the best intentions.

In reality, as my old jewish-history prof at uni kept repeating, criticism comes from the greek krinein, which means "to separate out, to decide". Most probably, if you look at stuff methodically and with some cool distance, you will find something positive in most things - and you'll find something negative, too. And both should be voiced and addressed, accordingly.

In essence, I'm saying that criticism is a good thing. If anything, the onus to reframe it into feedback and deal with it, lies with the coach himself. Simply punching the ball back into the clients' court is ridiculous, juvenile and insane. And unproductive.

On the more cynical side, I still fail to see how the recent story of a stranded whale (that died because it picked up so much plastic in the ocean its intestines got obstructed and stopped working) has a lot of positive to it. In a lot of cases - such as a woman who survives childhood abuse, and then manages to make a career out of supporting other survivors - I suspect that a potential positive outcome does not lie within the situation itself, but "making something positive" is active, potentially very exhausting and tedious work on part of the person who made it happen. Simply reducing this to a character trait or an inherent attribute of a person, whose only display lies in the lack of criticism, is incredibly short-sighted, thoughtless and cynical. We cannot demand that a person be able to do that - at best, we can wish them the best in overcoming their specific issues, and empathize in a supportive way, realizing that we all have those points in our lives where we just don't seem to ever make any progress.

Ultimately, I think, that very last quality is what is so sadly missing from Pylarinos' videos: Empathy. It doesn't seem like he has realized that he's struggling exactly like the rest of us. I believe he thinks that he has to keep up a firm mask of success and self-assurance. I mean, we are talking about someone who runs a bunch of websites promising every kind of success - fast money, success with women, fitness, general success in life - under different names. All with the same copywritten drivel, all with the same obvious marketing tactics. It's somewhat hard to imagine that a guy like that actually has the experience to back his claims. Actual experience, in my experience, shows not in self-assured reliance on one's own grandiose life-coaching method. It shows in being able to deal with criticism elegantly, in the ability to ponder different points of view and deal with conflicting ideas without having to instantly come up with a clear-cut answer.

If you actually want to help people, developing your humility might make for a good headstart.

I'm chalking it up to his youth and relative inexperience. And that's one reason why I'm reacting this way on my blog.

See, to me this is a moment of hope. The sheer fact that Mr Pylarinos, or whatever his real name is, has seen the necessity to react to his critics - even if he did so in a rather clumsy and unconvincing way - shows me that some tiny part of the message did ultimately get through to him. Maybe the mask is showing its first cracks. Maybe, behind the sharade, behind the suave facade of success, somebody feels that maybe something is not quite right in lala-land.

I have heard of cases where opening up to criticism was the beginning of a journey back to sanity. All my best wishes go to Stefan Pylarinos for the tough trip that lies ahead of him.

"The Purge"

My first instinctive reaction, after watching the trailer for the movie "The Purge", was, "you have got to be kidding me."

Then, I thought a bit about it, and read the synopsis on imdb:

In an America wracked by crime and overcrowded prisons, the government has sanctioned an annual 12-hour period in which any and all criminal activity-including murder-becomes legal. The police can't be called. Hospitals suspend help. It's one night when the citizenry regulates itself without thought of punishment.

After that, my reaction was: "You fracking HAVE got to be kidding me!"

The premise is just that stupid.

In the trailer, one woman says "think about all the good the purge has brought". I wonder what that might be.

A 12 hour period without any emergency systems? What would be the toll on the economy of a state, if they were actually crazy enough to implement that?

Let's start off with the most obvious, and probably the one with the smallest impact: EVERYBODY would buy an expensive alarm system for their house. That's millions of dollars gone, for no good reason. And that's just the start.

We're talking probably millions of deaths, in a state like the U.S. We're talking something like a few percent of the populace. And that's only the fatalities. There would be countless injuries that would have to be treated after the 12 hour hospital shutdown - which, by the way, does or doesn't affect people already IN the hospital before the "purge"? Those injuries would bring down a part of the economy for months after the event.

Not only that, though. Nobody would be prepared to leave their homes during the "purge". That means no public services, no gas stations, no pubs, no nuclear reactors, no nothing.

It would be nice to be able to come up with some real numbers here - sadly, I'm not able to do that, but maybe someone will, at some point.

And what about revenge? Sure, some of the criminals will wear masks - but masks can come off when you least expect them to, and some will be too stupid, too drunk, too messy to buy masks.

How about car accidents that would go unpunished, their victims untreated? How about all the air traffic that a huge economy these days relies upon? How about the freaking military, for crying out loud.

Yeah. Forget it. I'm not going on about this. It's maddening. It's hilarious.

In short, it's just that stupid.

A lot more reasons why it's stupid can be found on TvTropes.

How much does a ghost weigh?

http://gphhawkinsrationalistsociety.weebly.com/ghost.html

Terrible orthography notwithstanding, this is an excellent example of skeptical thinking at work.

Excerpt:

How much does a ghost weigh? The answer you would get from most people is nothing at all. But if thats true, Ghost cannot have mass or momentum and cannot feel the force of gravity.  And if thats true, theres nothing binding them to the surface of the earth. without gravity to keep them here, any ghost that would appear before you would instantly  dissappear with a somewhat shocked expression at tens of thousands of miles per hour due to the earths rotation and its motion around the sun, not to mention the montion of the suns and planets around our galaxy