When living in such a fast-paced, rapidly globalized world, I find it difficult to cultivate a sense of self-awareness about issues that blur past me. Even when educated on contentious and deleterious topics, I find it rather arduous to be exceedingly concerned about global problems that don’t directly affect me. It’s not because I hold apathy for pressing issues, but rather that I lack tangible evidence that incites a reaction within me. Yet, after engaging in multiple contemplative practices that required me to be wholly invested in concrete activities, I found myself alarmingly distressed by the current state of the global food system. For instance, being able to chew on a raisin while learning about the harmful practices and undesirable working conditions perpetuated by the industrialized food system allowed me to not only reflect on the extreme effort that was put into my tiny piece of food, but also gave me physical proof of both the positive and negative aspects of food production. After the contemplative activity was over, I felt guilty for being so ignorant about detrimental agricultural practices and for allowing myself to feed money to industrialized food mega-giants that prioritize profit over ethics. Paired with Pollan’s critique on the United States’ industrialized food system, the raisin activity finally gave me the tangible proof I needed to really ignite moral discomfort within me, which has now blossomed into personal action against the unsound industrialized food practices. Even though the course contemplative activities were something so small, the scope of their impacts reached far beyond just eradicating apathy within me. I am now involved with Food Mythbusters, an organization that fights for industrialized agriculture reform and unethical labor practices. My hope is to continue such collaborative efforts in order to truly eradicate industrialized food malpractice. All it takes is a small step, or maybe even one little raisin.
Hi Rebecca,
I think you made an excellent point about the power behind the simple contemplative practices that we had in lecture. You made an interesting point about how you don’t necessarily need something to be personal but rather need concrete evidence for a reaction to be ignited within you. But, I think that learning about this issue was personal, and how you indirectly contributed to unethical agricultural practices, tapped into the urgency to mobilize against those agricultural practices. To your point about how the contemplative practices were transformative, I agree with you. Part of the reason why I think the contemplative practices were particularly powerful was that as students we were forced to sit down, slow down, and reflect upon the food we were consuming. I think that in our age, we are accustomed to eating our food on the go, in front of our TVs, or while we complete work that we seldom have the opportunity to eat mindfully.