[01.05] - Conscious Consumer

The words seem disparate, I know; I can already hear the polarized negative associations. Conscious? Patchouli incense, frumpy dashikis. Consumer? Wasteful, greedy purchasers (or, if you’ve seen The Animation Show, the phrase “I am a consumer whore”).

Obscure film references aside, all of us are, to some extent, both conscious and consumers. And yet, often, we’re not.

We’re all consumers—we’re not churning up Jergens in the back room, or growing our own Fruit Loops. Without a doubt, we’re conscious of what we purchase. Those with medical, ethical or spiritual food requirements—Ital, Adventist, diabetic—know about scouring ingredient lists for lingering lard or surprise sugar. Even the less picky diner opts for bread that’s brown, not green and fuzzy, and grapes that aren’t grey. Yet, some mighty strange things are still stashed on foodstore shelves—and, consequently, home cupboards.

Take Lunchables. An average pack of these pint-sized kiddie snacks has more funky ingredients than a pimp has purple suits. Partially hydrogenated soybean oil (more harmful to heart and arteries than saturated fats); monosodium glutamate (can trigger allergic reactions, potential factor in hyperactivity and Attention Deficit Disorder). The best part? Sodium intake—up to 73% of the suggested daily limit, per serving. That percentage, of course, is for an adult diet; these tasty lunchtime treats are geared for children.

Why do such dubious pleasures wind up in our fridges and on our plates?
Is it because we want to fill our children with blood-pressure-raising, allergy-offsetting, attention-dwindling crap? Probably not.
Is it because food manufacturers are demon spawns hell-bent on the destruction of the human race? Plausible. But more likely it’s because they’re shrewd business people and we, often, are not shrewd buyers. We’re literate, but, for many of us, we simply don’t read.

Okay, yes, we do. We read the paper. We read the movie poster. We read books and facebooks and youtube search results and dozens (perhaps hundreds) of emails a week. That’s great. It’s also not enough.
Project Read, if it still exists, could really pull its weight by teaming up with a functional Ministry of Health for a label-reading campaign. I’m pretty sure if everyone read everything that went into or onto their bodies, certain products would start piling up and festering in the store.

Actually, though, literacy starts way before the supermarket stage. You don’t want to be rubbing down your ashy legs with cancer cream, or buying your boopsy toxic cologne; nor are you setting out to grease your head with pore-clogger #3.

This is where pre-purchasing research comes in hella handy, and it’s where the internet shines; sources like cosmeticsdatabase.com demysticize unpronounceable ingredients, explain their function and their possible health risks—or lack thereof.
Thinking that manufacturers will look after our health is outdated and naive. At the end of the day, what we consume has, 99% of the time, been labelled for our knowledge (and to meet legal requirements). If unhealthy products are still being made, it’s because we’re still buying crap, in spite of that information being provided. And sure, some people will still want to chow down on snack-shaped sodium or down endless bottles of liquid sugar.

But we should at least make ourselves aware of the contents and ramifications of what we buy. Then at least we can make educated choices—and maybe even intelligent ones.

- ja**ly

[01.04] - A Fresh Start

It’s a term with less-than-stellar connotations in my books—mostly based on high school, when it was usually followed by “in a new place”, and applied to naughty boys who fought and sold drugs, or the occasional girl caught freaking in the woodwork shack.

These days, I’m trying to put a positive spin on that Fresh Start concept, and look at people anew. It’s hard.

See, I have a special skill: an elephant-like memory, mammoth both in size and duration. Especially when it comes to people doing stupid things.

Friend who stole my plastic ring when I was six? That biting comment about the faux leather dress I wore in ’95? The girl who shunned me when I was three? All filed neatly away in my brain, with a date, name, and level of displeasure and desired revenge attached.

It’s not good. Yes, there’s a certain benefit to the ‘once bitten, twice shy’ and ‘fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me’ mentality.

There’s also a time to stop giving the second, third, and fourth chances.
Sometimes, contrary to popular tunes, once really is enough. You shouldn’t extend mercy to your psycho girlfriend for hot-gritsing you for bringing home the wrong brand of ketchup, nor give your husband a second try when you catch him merrymaking with your cousin. There’s a sharp divide between “fresh start” and “wilful stupidity.”
Still, it’s worth remembering that we all say, and do, things that are inconsiderate, ill-thought-out, immature. Sometimes, though, people change. And sometimes these are isolated incidents of folly. It’s worth actually taking the time to see who and where a person is at any given moment, rather than hearing their name and gleefully rolling out the old filing cabinet of possibly outdated negative associations.

Of course, old, and now inaccurate, memories can be endearing. Without it, my family would never have enjoyed the poetic irony of the repairman dubbed ‘Skinny’, though he must have, for decades, weighed in well over 250 pounds.
Part of the problem of clinging to old judgments, though, is that it’s lazy. Sure, it’s too much to reassess someone every single time you meet. But sometimes it’s okay—and necessary—to simply let go and move on to getting to know who someone is now.

I’m writing this little forgive-and-forget edict with a bitter taste in my mouth. An acquaintance recently made a tactless, ignorant, and offensive comment. Those three traits are three of my least favourite, and I have to admit, I got the filing cabinet of Sin and Stupidity out.
I’m trying right hard not to whip out a new folder, emblazon their name on it, and slip this incident in right at the front. So I know only too well that letting go is neither simple nor fun.

Still, I’m giving it a try.
I’m attempting to step away from the cabinet and put the foolishness-file down. Hopefully, tomorrow—and the next day, and the next, I’ll be (at least slightly) able to step back from the memory of jackassery, and take the time to take a sincere look at who they are in the moment, now.

-ja**ly

[01.03] - Love, Despite

Nothing has prepared me for the complexities of adult love. Not childish wedding fantasies, not formulaic romance novels, and surely not the annual parade of neat gift-giving days.

Mother’s Day for mothers. Father’s Day—well, that’s mostly for buying roadside crabs, but sure, if you know who your daddy (or baby’s daddy) is and he actually features in your life, it’s for pops. Valentine’s, of course, is for lovers.
How lucky that society has established days to tell us how, when, and who to love. Perish the thought that we might have sufficient brain power to figure out appropriate times to express our appreciation for those we hold close and high.

Calendar celebrations of love unsettle me.
It’s not just that they epitomise the wasteful and pointless material crap that characterizes our lifestyles: wrapping paper, designed to be torn off and thrown away; red paper hearts put up this week and tossed out next; mass produced greeting cards spouting sappy sentiments you could better say yourself.
It’s that they promote idealized portrayals of love, and that’s not right.

Love, in our society, implies certain things. You eat, go out together and participate in various activities, from co-movie-watching to sundry levels of carnal joy. It implies an ever after, the fuzzy sensation acquired at the end of romantic comedies, the last scene from a fairy tale—the Disney version, that is.
In reality, love’s often closer to Hans Christian Anderson stories, where characters freeze to death while they fantasize contentment and the girl ends as foam on the beach and not as a princess in the hero’s arms. Extreme? Probably. Imperfect? Indeed. Love’s often like that.

As a semi-romantic, I enjoy the Bible’s love chapter: love is patient, love is kind. Its ideals are enticing and sweet, they sum up what many hope to find. Even there, though, a closer look reveals that it’s much more about endurance, suffering, and continuing despite.

Love frequently stinks. It can involve extreme attachment even though someone can’t and won’t stay in your life, intense admiration for someone you’ll never have. It can involve physical distance, emotional distance, distance due to sickness, distance due to duty and devotion to others you may love less but have committed to and, thus, must protect.

To make ourselves feel better, we tell ourselves and each other lies that downgrade the significance of our bitter ventures. “I was just obsessed with him.” “I was only dependant on her.” “It wasn’t really love.” Creating these compartments makes it much easier to distance misfortunes from amore that falls closer to the happy ideal.

I love to see old couples tottering down the street, side by side, arm in arm, propping each other up and moving each other along. I like to imagine all those years together, the children they’ve raised, meals they’ve shared, the home they’ve loved and lived in.

In reality, the children probably include a few fruits of infidelity. Some of those meals were likely seasoned with spite or burned intentionally. The house walls may be dented from where someone aimed a skillet at somebody’s head.
Unless they are reincarnated saints, they’re together in spite of, not because of.

If anything, acknowledging the bitter makes human attachment well-rounded, real and remarkable. Anyone can love surrounded by red satin and white chiffon (with a garland of chubby-legged teddy bears dancing around).
It takes true substance and real heart to persist with love when it’s more like a rabid grizzly tearing at your leg, when it’s more about holding on, despite.

And yet, we do. I think we should celebrate that.

- ja**ly

[01.02] - Better Ways To Love

Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and so are the romantic trappings; chocolate, candles, perfume—all things sweet. Well, not so much.

We’re living in an odd time. Every time you turn around, some familiar family favourite, some sturdy, respectable, trustworthy object turns out to be bad for you.
First there were those damn mad cows that were eating ground up bits of their brethren.
Then the E.coli spinach incident.
Then there was toxic lead paint turning up in the toys our kids are gnawing on. What can you really trust?

Not much, when it comes to typical Valentine’s Day fare. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Well, ok, it is.
There’s lots bad about the average lover’s day gifts. Much of our chocolate actually comes from cocoa harvested through child labour. There’s also the issue of rainforest loss; cocoa farmers who are paid a pittance (and most are, unless they’re involved in fair-trade initiatives) get higher short-term yields by felling surrounding trees, rather than growing slower-yielding cocoa plants in existing forests, that will continue to bear for more years.

Most of the colognes and perfumes contain synthetic fragrances, which are common allergens, skin irritants and are possibly linked to birth defects.

Candles? Most are made from paraffin, the lowest petroleum by-product. Yep, those ‘Lady and the Tramp’-style dinner candles are lovingly crafted from the crap that’s leftover after motor gas, kerosene, and asphalt have been obtained. When burned, they release carcinogenic substances like those found in such sexy products as nail polish and house paint. Many are also artificially scented.

Now I realize that in the Bahamas, we’re not much into sustainability. We’re small, so global warming’s not our problem. What we do doesn’t make much of a difference, especially since larger countries will continue to impact us, regardless of what changes we make.
But these things are our problem. We’ve imported holidays like Valentine’s Day, and brought in the low-grade products that are marketed along with these festivities. And even if the politics of bigger issues don’t matter, the fact that many of us are getting sicknesses that are obviously related to our lifestyle choices should.

Blah blah blah. No one’s thinking health, ethics, and politics on Feb. 14.

Which is where the good side comes in.
For every poorly made product there is a wise alternative that’s ten times sexier than its crappy counterpart.

Take your typical box of chocolates. Replace it with a bar of organic fair-trade 70% dark chocolate. The percentage reflects how much cocoa (versus sugar, and, depending on the brand you choose, beeswax and other tasty fillers) your bar contains. 70% is the range where chocolate’s antioxidant qualities start to kick in. It also means a more concentrated dose of those famed aphrodisiac qualities. Be sure, though, to keep even the best-quality chocolate away from your herd of potcakes; cocoa contains theobromine levels that are safe for humans, but fatal for dogs.

Beeswax, soy and vegetable oil candles help set a romantic mood while sidestepping the toxic fumes issue.

And when it comes to scents, products—from soaps to massage blends—that contain essential oils not only make things (and people) smell good; they also produce a chemical response. I realize this doesn’t sound sexy so, to put it in more loverly terms, I’ll quote an aromatherapy store employee: “Sandalwood increases blood flow to the penis.” Jasmine, vanilla, rose, and lavender also have various relaxing, uplifting, de-stressing and inhibition-removing qualities.

But what’s best about making better choices is what you’re doing for yourself—and your significant other. If Valentine’s is supposed to be all about love then gifts that reflect care, concern, and consciousness clearly make more sense.

- ja**ly