I woke up thinking about rules this morning. Wait, that’s inaccurate. I woke up thinking about a really fat chocolate brown French bulldog puppy I dreamed a friend gave me. “His name is Buu.”, he told me. “You can figure out how to spell it.”

I have no idea what that was about. I can usually interpret the dreams of others, but never my own. I had a counselor once, ex-hippy type, tell me that everything in a dream is an aspect of the dreamer. I thanked her for her time and assured her that there are no Heather Graham aspects of me. I stand by that.

Yeah, anyhow, rules. I’m a fan and I’m not a fan. Like so many things in life, it all comes down to what matters. In consideration of what matters most, I always defer to Natural Law because it is inescapable and the foundation of my morality. The Laws of Nature take priority over the Laws of Man.

Here is an example.

You’re driving down the road and come up to an intersection with stop signs on all four corners. The Laws of Man dictate you must come to a complete stop before proceeding through the intersection, regardless of whether anyone else is there or else be subject to punishment including fines, possible arrest, and being beaten or shot for resisting arrest.

Natural Law indicates two, or more, physical objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. That’s all it says about the intersection. The rest is up to you and what you may surmise from that information. That’s where discernment comes in. I prefer discernment because “common sense” has largely been stamped out in favor of the Laws of Man.

Because two or more objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, allowing for the extremely remote possibility of the spaces between the molecules aligning perfectly, permitting the objects to pass through each other harmlessly being unlikely to the point of impossibility, discernment tells you it is unnecessary to stop at the intersection if no other objects are attempting to cross at the same time. Discernment also indicates you may want to slow down a bit to make certain of no other object is in the intersection or going to enter the same time as you.

Notice the difference between the two types of rules. The first requires only passive obedience. Failure to comply results in punishment. It also only took one sentence to explain. The second, took seven, one of which was a run-on, and requires active participation to avoid a negative result.

You may point out that both sets of rules have the potential for very negative outcomes and wonder why it matters. Excellent. That depends largely on perspective.

It can be argued the Laws of Man exist to keep people safe from one another. It can also be argued the Laws of Man also keep us safe from Natural Law’s consequences because people can’t be trusted to discern correctly. It’s a completely valid argument, people are stupid. However…

The Laws of Man must be adhered to or risk punishment even in conditions where there is no risk of negative outcome. The Laws of Man ensure a negative outcome, supplanting discernment and usurping Free Will. I would argue that Free Will is what makes us Human.

Removing the defining characteristic of any thing transforms it into some other thing. If the defining characteristic of being Human is possessing Free Will, removing that quality removes us of our humanity. That’s the Natural Law of Identity. A thing is itself. It’s mathematically expressed as “A=A”. I’m not going to dive any deeper into that right now, though I’m certain it will come up in the future.

My point is, the Laws of Man exist to subvert Human Nature because Humans can’t be trusted to use their Free Will correctly, and these days particularly, as desired. That’s where morality comes into play. As with the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Man, there is Natural Morality and Man-Made Morality and because I brought it up, I now have to explain it. Shit.

Oh, well. Dad always said, “You killed it. You eat it.”

Some individuals aren’t overly impressed with the power of the State to enforce the Laws of Man. There may or may not be a police officer there at the intersection to enforce the law. Even if one is there, they may not be able to catch the individual refusing to stop and so on.

Now I don’t personally believe it makes a difference, and has no relevance in regard to sociopaths and psychopaths, but this is where Man-Made Morality comes into play.

In simple terms, man-made morality is religion. It’s fundamentally the same as the Laws of Man, that is, it exists to subvert Free Will in favor of strict adherence to an externally dictated code of behavior, enforced under threat of real (by members of that religion) or imagined (deity) punishment. That’s a huge statement and a responsible writer would go into detail to explain their assertion, but I’m at a point in my life where irresponsibility has become a goal, and I’m torn.

It is worth mentioning that I use the term “religion” to describe any authoritarian system of social control relying on imagined operant conditioning to dictate the behavior of individuals or groups of people. It’s a monstrous system as, most often, it requires the willing submission of the individual being controlled as the source of authority. The term “cult”, as I use it, is the same as a religion, but with very real, physical consequences for stepping out of line.

Man-made morality, is a kind of last ditch effort to “keep the rabble in line” by exploiting the superstitious Nature of the animal “Man” and/or “Man’s” compulsion for social association (tribalism).

The Laws of Man, state or religiously based, exist for one purpose: to make you less than human. OK, that’s not fair; they exist to keep society functioning because the truth is, man is provided with dual Natures because we are, at least as I believe right now, two entities. I’ve mentioned this before when I started that stupid fucking diet, but here is the recap.

We are a semi-sentient animating force (soul, mind, spirit) driving around in a meatsuit (physical body). Our SSAF has a Nature centered around Free Will. It must be free to choose and act in its own interest to continue its existence and prolong the useful life of the meatsuit. I refer to it as “semi-sentient” because it tends to be only partially or intermittently aware of itself because of the influence of our other half, the meatsuit. I used a Dangervan metaphor last time and I’ll use it again.

I have to keep Dangervan on the road. In order to do so, I have to be free to do what is necessary – put gas in it, maintain it, wash it every now and then so I can see out of it, avoid hazards, et cetera.

Now, Dangervan is a fairly base model without a lot of convenience features, but it does have cruise control and I use it. I enjoy using it because that takes the burden of maintaining speed from me. I get really annoyed when I have to disengage it when what I want is to not be bothered. That’s the overextended Dangervan metaphor illustrating the “influence of the meatsuit”. When cruise control is on, my awareness of my speed goes away. Intermittent sentience. Because what is sentience if not awareness?

Self-driving cars are currently under development. The market is there. People want them. Why? Because driving is dangerous and difficult and people still want to get from Point A to Point B, but don’t really want to be involved otherwise. That’s why we have the Laws of Man. That’s why we have religion. People don’t want to be bothered being aware. Because the Natural desire of the semi-sentient animating force is to sit back and let the meatsuit do its thing. It’s not lazy, it’s Natural.

When I go back to the Garden Myth, before the apple, I see Adam and Eve in their "sinless" state. That state is as entities possessing no free will; hairless monkeys, hanging out in the trees, being hairless monkeys. Fruit was eaten and free fucking will, baby! The meatsuit got a driver - and the purpose of God and religion since has been to get Adam and Eve’s progeny to abandon that gift and return to the trees.

Heh. Three pages in Word and I am now going to bring this back to food.

I’m making white chicken stock a couple nights back, violating all manner of classical French culinary rules and I’m getting pissed. Why? Because I’m not doing it right. That is to say, I’m going against my Cordon Bleu training and not using the carcass of the bird. I’m not bringing it to a gentle simmer to keep the stock as clear as possible while leaching out the flavor and collagens. I’m not skimming the released fat and proteins from the surface and… I’m. Getting. Pissed. Because I’m violating my conditioning. I’m taking off my culinary cruise control. I’m rejecting the Culinary Laws of Man as well as the comforting Orthodoxy inculcated in my kitchen traditions and I’m reacting to my choice to behave in a way that best serves my needs. How messed up is that?

I need the stock for low calorie, low fat, high protein sauces to serve to my wife and myself. Chicken cubes aren’t cutting it because they just reduce back into free-form chicken cubes, all yellow and salty. My stock will never be clarified to make consommé. I’m never going to have my food judged by those pretentious jackasses on Food Network. My wife’s TV tray is not located in a fine dining establishment. Maurice the condescending sommelier does not live here.

My food is for us. Sure, I make it public on this web site, but that’s also for me. It’s this weird fine line for me. I love the art of classical French cooking. I genuinely do, but my grounding is in the peasant origins of the food, the making shit ingredients palatable because you’re broke and you have people to feed. The same goes for Southern Foodways. I mean, shit. I’m broke and I cook. What could be better? Well, being able to afford truffles might be nice, but I mean when trying to cut through all the bullshit of life and reconnect with your roots, what could be better?

To that end, I’m using whole chicken drumsticks because they are cheap and have tons of connective tissue. They have this amazing long bone going all the way through them, just full of flavor. And I’m concentrating it in my Instant Pot, harvesting the meat after 30 minutes because 7 chickens are now in wheel chairs on account of my stock needs and wasting their meat is disrespectful as hell. I’m breaking the long bones, throwing the waterlogged skins and cartilage back in, letting it go for another half hour and then sitting under pressure for an additional half hour.

I swear, to all the unseen woo-woo in the Universe, if I had a duck press, I’d use it on the remnants in the pot, after the draining. I want flavor. I want gelatin. I want cloudy as hell. And I’m not going to get what I need by blindly following rules that really don’t apply to my situation.

That’s really all I’m getting at. Cooking is illustrative. It feeds the semi-sentient animating force and the meatsuit. You just have to watch and listen. You have to be willing to follow your own rules. You have to be comfortable with your own definition of good. You have to know when to embrace orthodoxy and when to walk away.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but there is truth here. It’s why I cook. I learn, from every dish I make, some new aspect, some subtle nuance that illustrates something greater. It’s what I know and what I have to give. So I do. Campsite rule, always, if within your power.

Cheers.