In the years before I buggered up my ankle and gained all this weight back, I used to walk to the paved path through the woods I mentioned the other day. Now I drive to it, which seems counterintuitive. I always feel badly for Dangervan, my faithful steed as I leave it in the parking lot. I know it’s an inanimate object, but I swear I can hear it’s manitou asking what it did wrong. “Nothing, Dangervan. You’re just fine. I just need to stretch my legs.”, I say in my head. “See you, soon.”

I drive over there for a couple of reasons. The first is because someone visiting the neighborhood was out walking one morning, minding their own business on the sidewalk, and got randomly street pizzaed. Not just flattened, but flattened by a car heading into the corner of someone’s house. Bad deal as I recall. They’ve only recently repaired the house and the mismatched brick recalls the accident much more than the boarded up hole, somehow. Anyway, I probably wouldn’t give that much thought except I also used to walk around the neighborhood, which tended to spook the wife as we live jammed in the middle of three busy roads and she was concerned about me joining the ranks of the flatbread. I don’t really blow those concerns of hers off anymore. Stupid fate.

I also skip the walk to the well paved Nature Trail because the walk there is not fuckedankle friendly. I need a level surface to walk on and the trail is much better maintained than our scant neighborhood sidewalks. Oh. There’s also live action Frogger to consider. Walking along a sidewalk and getting smooshed is one thing. Jumping out into the middle of a four lane road with traffic is what I call “begging for it.” Don’t get me wrong, I don’t espouse “blaming the victim” of crimes for dressing inappropriately or being in the wrong place at the wrong time Those are crimes of volition, perpetrated against an innocent by some person or persons choosing to commit a crime. Crimes against Nature, on the other hand, well. That’s just begging for it.

Example: Running up to a wild animal, say a bear, and giving it a great big hug is begging for it. Jamming a venomous snake into an orifice? Begging for it. The bear and the snake are just behaving according to their Natures. So, playing Man-Frogger? Yes, begging for it. Automobiles are driven by people who do have a choice to squash you or not, but the speed and weight of those vehicles in motion are subject to their speed and weight and are not always able to yield or avoid things made of squishy meat that appear in their path. Cause and effect. Momentum. I do so love the purity of Nature. Speaking of squishy meat.

The last reason I drive Dangervan to take a walk is because of my current doughy stature or more to the point, growing up doughy. Great name, by the way, “Growing up Doughy”. I wish I had a use for it. Anyhow, when you grow up fat, you are constantly beset by people who “just love you and are worried about your health”. People you know, people you don’t, they're always coming up to you and telling you how you need to lose weight. How to live your life. According to their standards. Unless you’re fat, you really don’t get it. Here’s an example.

I’m in my early 20’s and have just left divorce court after standing alone before a judge to dissolve my marriage. The judge made me stand and give cause for my divorce. I couldn’t get through it and broke down like a child who just found a box full of dead puppies. The judge was so irritated with me, he gaveled me down and granted the divorce. I left the courtroom, still lacking my composure and got into the elevator to take me to the exit. A man gets on with me, not noticing the fact that I was sobbing uncontrollably in the most unmanly way possible, (What does that mean, anyhow? How does one sob uncontrollably in a manly way?), and lets me know that I’m overweight, because apparently fat people are completely unaware of this state of being, but it’s OK because he’s selling a diet that could make me millions.

This stranger came right up to me and felt perfectly at ease to sell me a diet because I was fat. Honestly, growing up fat is like training to deal with millennial wannabe activists. Ya’ll know the ones, the young people who feel completely morally justified in letting you know something about you is a sin against whatever the fuck their bullshit social justice religion is. I could go down a whole digression wormhole here, but I’ll skip it. For now...

The point is, when I was starting this diet, I was walking around the neighborhood (bad idea) and an elderly woman felt the need to let me know how much she approved of me taking action in regard to my weight. Seriously! I shit you not! Boundaries, people! Mind your own damn business!

I really need to believe she thought she was just being supportive of someone who was actively working to take control over some aspect of their life they had yet to master. Ya’ll don’t know me, but I can assure you that was a Pulitzer quality piece of spin I just put on that shit.

I really do need to believe she was wishing me well because I’m tired of thinking the opposite about people. In my last post, I made some comments about mountain biking types with all their matching gear being likened to uniforms and it altering their perception of themselves and of others. The elderly woman tingles the same sensation in the back of my mind.

Let’s look at the word “uniform” and what it means. As a noun, it refers a style of clothing or manner of dress worn by all members of a given group, be it soldiers, kitchen staff, medical professionals, sportsball players, whatever. The point it, the uniform is intended to identify a group of people as a defined unit so they may work together more easily and so that non-group members may more easily recognize them as such. What uniforms actually do, these days anyhow, is segregate people from anyone not wearing that uniform. I don’t know if this is man’s Natural tribalism or if there are other conditions at play but nonetheless, there it is. But there’s more than just "uniform's" usage as a noun.

I have a love/hate relationship with “uniform” being used as an adjective. On one hand, I genuinely love consistency and order. A consistent system is a system of individual parts which all act according to the same rules which, in turn, serves the Nature of that system. It’s a beautiful thing. Like a clockworks. Each of the little parts, behaving according to their Natures which are integrated, accounted for, to keep the time. And that’s when I see the disconnect. The movements of the clockworks are not uniform. They are individual pieces existing according to their Natures and are integrated. Unity, not uniformity. You can’t take a spring and make it do the job of a gear. That’s a violation of its Nature. It has to be a spring. More on that in a bit.

As much as I love unity of purpose to achieve a unified end, it's way to easy to mistake uniformity for unity. To be uniform is to be the same as everything else. To have no differences. To be ultimately replaceable by another uniform piece and therefore meaningless as a part. I think you see where I’m going. Hope so, because I’ve already moved on to the next bit in my mind and am just using this as a segue.

Humans have to be humans. While our meatsuits, and the minds that drive them, have many structures and processes in common, we are not the same. Every person you encounter has a different genetic make up affecting their meatsuit and mind. The genetic variation serves a purpose, allowing us to adapt as a species. We are not intended to be uniform. To be uniform would mean we are all the same person and a species of clones would not last very long. In addition to the variation of our genetic code, we are all shaped by our experiences which can modify the meatsuit, shop class accidents are real, but most often alter the mind.

What I see is an overwhelming effort on the part of the media, marketers, political parties, educators, and social scientists, to force uniformity of thought and desire upon a race of beings who are intended to think and act as individuals. I don’t know if it’s a coordinated effort, it does seem like it frequently. Humanity, as a single unit, is like that clock I mentioned before. In order for it to function as a unit, it must be populated with individual parts, existing according to their individual Natures, without violating the Nature of another, not for the good of the Unit, but to just be.

The spring does not know it is a spring and as long as it is allowed to be a spring, it will never complain.

Those institutions I mentioned, seem bent on trying to force springs to be gears and gears to be springs because they believe that is what is in the best interest of Humanity. That uniformity of thought, function, and ability is what propels humanity forward. And, in the opinion of just another damn voice on the internet, they have no real understanding of humanity or what it means to be human.

But what the hell does this have to do with the elderly woman and being fat?

I’m accepting she was trying to be encouraging and supportive. In my head though, I see it as condescension or derision because to be fat is to not be uniform which is to not be part of the group. It gets a little weirder from here. To willingly not be part of the group, because "fat is a choice", is to summarily reject the superiority of the group and as such, to declare your way of life as superior. Think about the American political, religious, and social landscape. To choose Android is to reject Apple. To choose Wokeism is to declare its superiority over Neo-conservatism. To choose Miller Lite is to reject Transexuals. To choose Nike is to reject American values.

Conversely, to reject being fat by actively dieting and exercising is to declare the superiority of the “fit” and subsequently your own desire to be uniform and belong. The word fit is also tricky. What does that mean, to be fit. Fit into what? Your uniform maybe? I you’re not fit, you must therefore be unfit. Again, unfit for what?

I do not go to gyms. I have, when I was younger, but now I won’t. The reason being is the gym is full of that old woman. People who are thrilled to see another “unfit” person has declared their need to join the fit. (To fit in. Ha!) Also gyms aren’t free and I’m going to pay good money to have to lift heavy shit and hang out with that older lady disguised as a muscle bro. In all fairness, I wouldn’t go if gyms were free, either. Same issue, but with the added bonus of the scarcity desperation accompanying shared resources. No, thank you.

What the hell just happened to this blog entry? This was supposed to be about food! Yeah, I have no idea. Sometimes my anti-collectivist, FA taint gets in my way, and lets be honest. I just rubbed my taint all over this one.

FA is “Fat Acceptance”, by the way. It’s what we had before “Body Positivity” took over. Some children, probably thin with fat friends, decided that “Fat Acceptance” wasn’t inclusive enough because, once again, to make a declaration in favor of something is to declare it superior to anything not falling into that declaration. So, FA was replaced with “Body Positivity” because it didn’t shame the thin or the fit or the amputees with three nostrils. Now, I have nothing against thin people or fit people or amputees with three nostrils. How people choose to trick out their meatsuit is their business but, their struggle at acceptance is their struggle. We are not the same. So while the Millenials and Zoomers are imposing their reality contradicting world where we are all the same, those of us who have been marginalized for decades just have to suck it up and deal because the children have spoken and declared our struggle over. Not because people finally treat us as equals but because we don’t struggle correctly and the young people have it handled. Arrogant little shits.

See? It just happened again. It’s really hard to get away from and that’s the point of the elderly woman. It's not her fault. She very well could have been well-intentioned, but because of my conditioning, I have a very hard time seeing it as anything other than back-handed derision. If you hit a dog enough, it'll flinch any time a human raises their hand. And I guess that's where I've landed, not just from the non-fats, but from the young people who think their first job in life to make certain everyone thinks correctly, even if it contradicts what was correct moments before.

Anyway, regardless of the delusions of the children, the FA movement still exists and for many of us, living apart from dieting, gym culture, surgery, Smegmatide, and all that crap, in our natural states, is an act of rebellion. An outright rejection of the attitudes that we are lazy, fat slobs or the inclusivity of “body positivity”. For the leftover Boomers, that 70’s generation, and my people, the GenX, it’s still largely (fat joke) acceptable to malign the obese. For the younger people, we no longer exist because all bodies are beautiful and must be accepted and embraced. Except that’s not what really happens. Sigh.

Enough digression and run on sentences. It’s time for the recap!

I drive to the park where I walk for three reasons:

1. To avoid being street pizza.
2. Because I have a bad ankle that doesn’t take well to uneven terrain.
3. I’m avoiding some elderly woman who inadvertently honked me off by trying to be supportive because clearly, I have issues.

Can you just imagine being someone who actually knows me in real life and has to listen to this shit? Holy crap! But if you think about it, food isn't just the stuff we put in our bodies to keep ourselves running. Nourishment can be mental or spiritual. You know, "food for thought". Or maybe "soul food".