It's interesting what happens when certain people learn how particular I am about my diet.
Now, when I say certain people, I mean the sorts of people who don't fast, whose diet largely consists of things from plastic containers, who think all water is the same, and who haven't the slightest ability to cook a meal from scratch.
When I tell them I tend not to eat in the first half of my day, that I don't drink from the tap, and that I, thank you kindly, am fine without their chips, they reel backward in offense.
It's as if, by stating I prefer not to partake in their pleasure—which they seem suspiciously proud of—that I am outrightly detesting their very existence.
Upon offense, they reach as quickly as they can for their cereal bars and crackers and "zero sugar" drinks, imploring, with a salty giggle, that I consume it.
"Oh wait! It's got the nut oils! He won't eat it! HARHARHARHARHAR!"
Tears rolling from their eyes, cheeks red, gut full, they now feel, somehow, they've justified their tendencies.
While I've come to enjoy conflict more and more as the years pass—in order to compensate for my avoidance of it as a child—this is the one sort of conflict I don't really like.
Not because it makes me anxious or nervous, but because the sorts of people with whom I tend to conflict are so persistent in their insecurity that I feel it'd be wrong to reciprocate their vilification.
Some care very little about what they eat—and therefore what I eat—as long as it tastes good and fills them up. And so, I've found, actually, that most conflict arises with the compromisers: those who want to be one thing but are, in fact, another.
These are the calorie counters, the step-trackers, the dieters, the "good-enoughers."
These are the ones who do all they can to act like the thing they want to be without having to totally relinquish their hedonistic comforts, commit to taming their impulses, and forgo pleasure, at least for a short time, so they might experience life's greater fruits.
I'm sure by now you're wondering what's driving my apparent rage.
Yes, it is true: I do write this as a sort of satirical hit piece, a shot back at the haters (all of whom I love), for I, too, am an insecure human.
But I write this also as a call to action.
Because I've noticed that our country is losing real ones . . . You know, the sorts of people who are nearly impossible to offend, who do what they say they're going to do, who hold opinions of their own, who have genuine interests, and who are the same regardless of who's watching.
I think, right now, that we have more compromisers than ever.
Our people are paradoxically set in their ways, though unwilling to explain how they arrived at their conclusions and further unwilling to change and learn new ways of being.
This must end.
We need more real ones. We need more people willing to commit to themselves, to learn, to accept uncertainty, to fail and then to grow. Be or don't be. Unmask thyself. Fear not to be who you are, for courage precedes truth.
"He is blessed who is assured that the animal is dying out in him day by day, and the divine being established."