Ali Dark

Why Doctors Can’t Say “Vegan”

Ali — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:34:47 +0000

If you suffer from one of the chronic diseases linked to animal foods, like most Australians do at some time in their life, you’re not likely to have heard the vegan word in the Doctor’s office, even though as a rule the diet is the best for reversing your life-threatening condition.

Assuming you believe me on that one, isn’t that strange?

No one likes to admit they’re wrong, especially when they’re part of a larger wrongness that is modern ‘medicine,’ the chemical and procedural aftermath of the party that is today’s modern lifestyle.

Food is close to people’s hearts. Sometimes it’s the only memory of a loved one passed, along the lines of “Betty used to make me such a good lasagne…” It almost seems too much to part with the past, to call a wrong when it’s such a part of our history. For me, it’s sausages, peas corn and mash potato with tomato sauce, aka Meat and three veg, interspersed with lamb chops and somtimes steak.

I’d be a liar if I said my heart isn’t warmed by the memories of Mum, Dad, my sister and I around the family dinner table in the early years.

Doctors are traditionally from well off families, who tend in turn to be conservative in nature and often tied to rural Australia, where dignified, old fashioned professions are the way of things.

In any case they’re usually from strong familes with a great respect for culture, along with strong work and moral ethics.

Their own professions are the culmination of millenia of learning. So what if they’re among the sickest of us all?

if you’re from this type of background, hearing that there’s something wrong with animal foods is like being told there’s something wrong with everything. It pulls the rug out from a whole culture. It rips the identity right off the person. Can we really expect that to happen?

No, we can’t. I’d never expect a person to agree to having his skin ripped off which I guess would be easier than what I’m talking about here.

It makes far more sense to prevent such conditions as diabetes, heart disease and cancer with healthy food and a healthy lifestyle.

And what’s that? It’s not an additional apple a dau. It’s not 30 minutes of exercise before a juicy does of processed choestorol.

Healthy food is vegan. That’s the difference.

Sustainable Diets and the Challenge of Faith

Ali — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:28:33 +0000

Firstly, an apology to anyone whose religious sensitivities are offended by this article. It’s a very sensitive topic and I’ve tried to be respectful but also direct. I can assure all readers that I have a great respect and love for saintly people past and present, including all the saints and prophets of world’s great faiths, peace be upon them.

What I intend to address here are related more to culture and tradition than the essence of religions, which I maintain are good, and not to be looked down on in any way. What many people consider to be religion is actually suplurfuous to the real religion and is instead culture. Of course the act of separating religion from culture is difficult to instigate and challenging to undergo, and it’s for this reason I’ve written this article.

That said, the world needs to move beyond animal diets quickly. When many people identify with a mix of religion, faith and cultural tradition, how can the need be communicated without offending them? We humans don’t think of our cultural traditions and ideologies as variables up for discussion. We think of them as being the right and only way to live and rarely to stop to question them ourselves.

Although the animals we are farming to kill and eat all feel pain and emotion similarly to us, the world’s faithful are often given by their culture a green light to ignore such suffering. Religious texts unanimously support kindness to animals, but in other parts of the same texts may also condone eating them.

These contraditions are found in most of the worlds most major religions including Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Religion, being deeply ingrained socially and emotionally, is a difficult thing to challenge.

Faith as a barrier to sustainability.

From the outset it feels impossible to communicate the topic of cultural change to religious people. The more religions, the more impossible it feels. The danger of offending people deeply is suddenly very high. How can we expect people to overcome belief, habit and social expectations? A challenge to one’s religious belief becomes a challenge to that person by extension. That, and no one wants to be frowned upon.

Yet it is critical that people of faith adopt sustainable lifestyles along with everyone else, for the simple fact that unsustainable lifestyle lead to the end of living.

Religions are valuable and noble in all cases, despite the drastic deeds some try to pin on them. They should all be viewed with a great degree of respect.

Separating the ideology of veganism from the actual diet

To many Veganism is not just a way of eating but a way of life. This is great, but it’s also a barrier, because as an ideology, or something that will be seen as such, it conflicts with faith, which is another kind of ideology. This is not to pass judgement on any ideology at all, it’s just to acknowledge that ideologies require faith of their own, and adherence. As mentioned, most people unconsciously inorporate ideologies into their identity, meaning a challenge it is a personal challenge – a threat that sometimes even elicits the same flight and fight responses as a more physical confrontation might.

But the ideological barrier is not impervious, because no religions prohibit a plant-based diet. Thus veganims, packaged in a non-ideological concept, should not be a threat to anyone’s religious ideology.

This is not to say that the core tenets of the vegan ideology will not sprout naturally within people in time. As time passes without animal products, many people report a natural and spontaneous change growth of compassion for animals. Thus, the faithful will adjust their own ideologies, retain their essential religious practices, and change the culture that surrounds them.

How can the plant-based diet be preseted to people of faith?

Education is needed, with the information presented completely outside of any ideology, in a non-judgmental and non-patronising way.

Instead of starting with the most personally challenging begin informing with the most external reasons for change and lead inwards with the receivers permission. For example starting with environmental and health issues, statistics on the problems, what people can do to help, and moving into more cultural, personal and spiritual issues as required.

1. The environmental imperative

Environmental urgency exists not only on a global scale but also on the local scale of most places. Livestock production never helps the situation as in all cases it wastes energy, land and water resources.

The environmental issue is the least intrusive to ideology as it is the most external. We may not agree on many things but we do all live on the same big rock.

When most of the worlds religious texts were written or compiled, there were mere millions of people on the face of the earth. Today there are seven billion. It is thus conceivable that practices suggested thousands of years ago should be understood in the context of their time, and the core tenets of faith, compassion and virtue, be applied to the challenges of today.

2. The health imperative

The issue of personal and public health is slightly intrusive because if you suggest change is needed there is an implication that there is something wrong with the current way of life (ideology/culture). But once you get past cultural misnomers and industry misinformation, the facts are that it is quite easy to live without animal products and that many personal and public health crisis can be solved. This information can be presented creatively but culturally neutrally, or riding on existing cultural traditions where they support.

One example of cultural support of the change follows. In many cultures most traditional meals were prepared without animal products in the first place, the animal elements having been added in more modern times. Restoring these recipes to their original grandeur will also appeal to the natural urge to belong in a culture.

3. The Moral imperative.

Approached in the wrong way, This is the most ideologically intrusive reason for the plant-based diet. However at the right time, it’s not necessarily so.

As most religions, including the ones mentioned, teach that like people, other animals are spiritual entities, it brings the question of harming animals into the chaotic world of faith.

Because no religions actively prohibit the plant-based diet, it becomes a possibility – desirable under the concept of ‘least harm.’

The sensible argument goes something like this. “What would Christ, the Prophet Buddha or other saintly people do? Surely they would not freely choose to inflict harm on fellow beings for the sake of their own enjoyment or cultural belonging.”

4. The religious imperative

This pretty much a useless strategy unless imparted from one member of a faith to another, whereas the topic is less likely to appear insulting or confrontational.

It would be hard for a person inside a religious culture to believe that someone from the outside has any right or means to talk with them on how to practice that religion properly.

Most of the time deep religiosity accompanies a deep aspiration to life rightly and a genuine respect for the ideals of the spiritual personage the religions revere. It is this that can be appealed to and can respond.

Lecturing a person on the real meaning of a their religion can only have one result – extreme agitation for both parties. We need to understand each other as emotional and social beings, and expect reactions when we challenge each other’s identities.

This type of activism is rarely outright cultural imperialism as there are passionate activists in every corner of the world. But in multicultural societies, where minority cultures struggle to maintain their own identity, it becomes more important to respect people’s sensitivities.

But such respect should not become a fear that outweighs a more important respect, which is for people who have a right to life, health and a world of peace and plenty – which due to the pressures of the day, is a world only possible with mass adoption of the plant based diet.

Please continue the conversation on Google+.

An Uplifting Example of Universal Humanism and Faith

Ali — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:12:26 +0000

At the turn of 2012, an era came to an end for many. One of the most interesting efforts to inspire cultural change through mass communication came to an end.

Supreme Master Television it was called, and for five years it went out to the entire world on 16 satellite TV platforms and online streaming. If you’re interested in the name, it’s because the station was inspired and financed by the modren spiritual teacher Supreme Master Ching Hai.

The most remarkable thing about this station, besides being completely charitable and run by the volunteer efforts of ardent meditators of the ‘Quan Yin Method’ (aka Light and Sound Meditation or Shabd Yoga), was it’s total acceptance and respect for the world’s faiths.

Many spiritual or religious people tend to feel threatened by different practices or faiths. Supreme Master Television was differentialed from other free-to-air programming by it’s inclusiveness and success in reaching a diverse audience in both faith and nationality (I think the global broadcast was accompanied with up to 60 language subtitles, the most common in the main broadcast and others available separately online).

Listening you would regularly hear and see ‘Be Veg and Go Green 2 Save the Planet,’ a message that seemed to be the focus of much of the programming. Scientific, humane and more spiritual arguments were put forward as reasons to go animal free. It was from this station that I got the information I needed to move beyond dairy.

As well this pressing message, there were often scrolling excerpts of religious texts that impressed me with a powerful feeling of religious unity.

Here I’ve collected my favourite of such scrolls. The videos linked to below are direct download, WMV format, which will play automatically using Windows and with MPlayerX on the Mac. They’re 50-100mb each.

You can see the complete list at the Supreme Master Television website, which has now become a treasure trove of history. I’ll certainly be posting more videos from there in the future, as I browse the archives and select my favourites.

The Contradictions of Writing and Authorship

Ali — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:06:25 +0000

I’ve always been plagued by the desire to write.

Of course writing is a fine craft and doesn’t need to be a problem. But in expressing opinions, insights and ideas there’s a contradiction with something that is much closer to me than those: the knowledge that the little blips of understanding that happen inside my own head are relevant to only one person at one time. Me, then.

Sacrificing truth

I’m in awe of the reality and a seeker of truth. But to bring these concepts and journeys anywhere near paper or text would be pointless and somehow also poisoning. Truth is simple, not to be intellectualised or communicated.

Only too aware of the mind’s tendency to aggrandise itself, I’m often torn between what I know is a good idea and the sacrifice of identifying, expressing and explaining it. Because nothing can be communicated without recourse to a world-view, a shared paradigm of understanding.

World-views suck because they aren’t the world. In fact they hide it from view. They’re virtual reality. They’re reactionary, arising from admixtures of encultured ideas, personal experiences and the need to identify and belong. World-views are rubbish.

How to write and communicate the good without relying on the harmful? If only I could say ‘for the greater good,’ but the perfectionist that lives somewhere between my ears is acutely aware of every contradiction of truth that occurs between my brain and fingers, as if it were a crime against humanity or a mark against my soul.

I value stillness of mind, emptiness where the real can be experienced. The space is were the perspectives I value grow. Ultimately, words get in the way. It’s like two step forwards with stillness and one step back with writing.

Think of Siddharta Buddha holding up his flower. He didn’t want essays about it from his disciples. He wanted smiles.

Removing the subjective from the ultimately subjective.

Removing the subjectivity fron writing feels wrong, but leaving it in makes it sound self-centred.

Absolutism and confidence is necessary for clear and persuasive writing. It’s no good to continually justify with ‘I think,’ ‘it could be,’ or ‘perhaps.’ Moving a thought from my mind to yours must happen with a direct head shot. Knowing that things are not absolute my tendency is to attempt to back up head shots with all the reasoning and logic necessary. I should have been a grave digger. I want to write simply, not subject people to the inner workings of my mind.

Suddenly I’m wondering if it should be subjective and sound self-centred, because that’s what writing is. If I’m not trying to persuade, that means I don’t need to pretend I represent truth eternal made word. It goes against some good writing advice, but then again I’ve never been once for advice (Dad?).

Value? What value?

There are two basics reasons to write: for me (introverted) and for others (extroverted). Writing for myself seems more humble but also more self-absorbed. Writing for other seems patronisingly egotistical but also more noble.

Why do I write and why should I? If I’m making it public, is it valuable to people?

I still don’t know why I want to write (does it show?). I already got rid of commenting. I don’t want to get into discussions and I don’t want to be patted on the back and feel obliged to pat back. I’m thinking about removing sharing, stats and the like. They suck me into a complex inferiority-superiority complex of neediness and worth. Besides taking my time and attention, they confuse me regarding my reasons for writing.

I have no intention to create a business out of writing unlike many of my digital peers. But I probably sill need a solid understanding of why I’m writing and who for, right?

If you’re not a cynic, what are you?

There’s problem solving and then there’s being an arrogant prick. Between the two is a vast undefined yet fearful landscape.

I feel that most of the time writing lives here.

The mind is a machine of patterns. It comes into this world a blank slate and builds up frameworks and develops tools, slipstream pathways for processing reality into the understandably simple and personally relevant.

Writing for me is at best a tool exposing and solving problems, an exercise that requires a certain mindset. The more you do it, the more you program your mind for doing it. But this mindset doesn’t translate well into every-day life. Suddenly and without warning you’re know everything and aren’t afraid to flaunt it. You’re serious. You’re critical. You notice flaws, inconsistencies and other people’s perceived deficiencies. Becasuse you programmed yourself like that.

Run for the hills?

Contradictions like these have given birth to a long-term love-hate relationship with what should be a simple tool for self-expression and helping others. As you can see I’ve head-fucked myself quite effectively.

Yet my aspiration for 2012 is more writing that shares the best ideas and knowledge I have access to, unimportant as it is in the shadow of the world in all its beauty and with all its truth.

An encouraging writer friend told me I should run from writing while I still can, before I turn into a miserable old cynic. The reason I’m not is that as far as pastimes go, writing is a harmless compromise between selfishness, usefulness. It’s also a constant exercise in self-observation, a tool for exposing the more serious flaws in our own understandings.

If self-improvement is our goal writing is not the optimal route to take. If we’re writing because we think people need us in any way we’re probably beyond the help of ourselves, friends or professionals anyway. If we write for the praise of others that’s even worse.

The world of ideas and thoughts is a complicated, unnecessary abstraction – a departure from what’a real. It’s not where to find truth, self, or make the world better. There are traps for the self-indulgent mind and self-aggrandising ego around every corner.

So cautiously, I’m drinking this cup of unknown contents. Whatever it is, I’ll indulge it properly this year, and hopefully afterwards I’ll know why. Hopefully at least it will be less complicated.

How to be Completely Fucking Brilliant

Ali — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:57:53 +0000

There are smart people everywhere. But belief in their own intelligence becomes a bullet in the foot. Ideas that seem right and make you feel smart colagulate over time into a thick glug that oozes through your brain. Metaphorically.

The goo hardens and the ideas form an ego-identity, a hard, inflexible substance void of originality and excreting ideas. The ego-identity reacts when threatened, causing the carrier to defend it. These emotional reactions might not be enough to make the carrier a sociopath, but it would be enough to retard their brilliance, because thoughts are curated to serve the identity.

We’re all carriers. We all suffer the suffocation of our natural brilliance.

So what is that brilliance?

I’m not sure, but it’s in our nature. Unlike the title of this post, it’s a gentle brilliance.

It doesn’t matter how ‘smart’ you or others think you are. If you’re human you’re pretty clever. We’ve got something to work with, at least.

You can keep your natural spontaneous brilliance by not holding onto facts or opinions too seriously.

Don’t invest your emotional energy in creating and defending ideas that really mean nothing to you. Don’t give them names and care for them like pets.

Think what you want. Believe what you want. For a day. When you wake up, believe in nothing except what’s in your head before the cogs even start turning for the day, before you drink coffee, watch TV, read news or think a serious thought.

Everthying is bullshit.

You need less information, not more.

Sure, you can’t ever objectively tell what is true or fact. But that’s not what I mean. Everything is actually wrong, incorrect. Everything is someone’s opinion, or regurgitated science, or a slant on events, or a mix. Once verbalised, defined, remembered, understood, it’s not what it is.

Even accepted truths are wrong.

It’s not like ‘oh I know I should be open minded so I’ll put those things I know are correct and that make me better & different aside for the moment.’ Not at all.

I’m not sure how you get to know that everything is bullshit. Meditation has helped for me, but also there’s a long process of going through stages where you think you know this or that and have to experience the tragic results. That’s me.

Once you’re there you can play the game without getting emotionally invested. Take it all at face value.

In stillness the grass will grow – it’s my favourite zen-type phrase.

You are now free of facts. Know what you need to know to do what you need to. Create the mental stillness for your natural brilliance to grow.

Beginner’s mind, all the time. Politics, religion, scientific understanding, who is good who is bad, all stale knowledge that clogs our brain like cholesterol in our heart, it clears. It’s like veganism for the mind.

You are completely fucking brilliant.

‘Tea Spirit’- Ali’s all night vegan tea, pizza, chillout and wifi bar

Ali — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:32:58 +0000

The lights are off where I live, and the power outage has got me imagining the future. Dont’ get excited, it doesn’t exist yet.

You’re at home. You’ve finished work. You’ve eaten. But you don’t want to go to bed. Or you’re on your way home, but you don’t want to go home.

You don’t want to drink. You don’t want to eat more. You don’t even really want to spend money. But you do want to sit.

You might bring your laptop, or iPad, to get some work done.

You just want to go out, preferrably somewhere were you’ll interact with other non-drunk humans. order some funky non-alcoholic drinks and perhaps have a small bite to eat, and just chill out with a relaxed, non-home vibe and perhaps strike up a conversation with a fellow progressive.

This place has the best teas and coffee, served in cups and pots and on plates that are their own art, rescued from op shops.

The ethic is always clean. No animal foods. No drugs. Just a place to chill for people who know how to live. Big breakfasts. Pizzas from lunch till 10:30. Does this place ever close? Not sure.

Monday – entrepeneurs night. Talk over your projects and businesses with other awesome people.

Bookable glass walled digital workstation and studio for collaborative community projects. Can pay to use for personal projects or to close the blinds.

Tuesday – veg night (catered – more than the usual pizza)

Wedneday – Jazz night

Thursday – Electro night (mellow, minimal, deep and ambient)

Friday Sat & Sun – gest DJs

A creative hub of positive, proactive, creative, forward thinking people to relax, socialise and enjoy the finer things in life, together.

It’s your world. Gift it with your dreams.

Ali — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:47:41 +0000

I’ve been a fan of Apple since buying a Macbook in 2010. It was a beautiful thing miles ahead of anything I knew existed, in terms of what I needed at the time.

I wasn’t really aware of Steve Jobs until after he died, but I find the guy really interested and inspirational. You only have to watch his address to the Standford graduating address to know why. He’s different and he gets shit done.

Unrelated to today’s post, he fluctuated between being a vegetarian, fruitarian, vegan and pescatarian for much of his life.

Now that kind of foolish brilliance and intuitive drive is sadly beyond me, but I have had a taste of it in starting Notzarella. It isn’t something I could have done if I lived by the books. I’m always shaking my head at how simple it is, yet I know that with work or work and family, it isn’t likely I’d have acted on that dream if it ever even popped into my head.

My road has always looked dangerous and it still is. But my road is my road and I have always had faith in it. I believe it is paying off, or will one day.

Onto you. I don’t know who you are or where you are in life. But you’re reading this because you’re interested somehow in veganism and might want to start a vegan business, hopefully based on an idea that is driving you.

I don’t know what challenges you are going to face in between now. I don’t know if you’ll get there. Life might have something else planned for you. Like Jobsie said in the above video, you can’t connect the dots looking foward, only backwards.

But your dreams are like your gifts to the world and it’s your human responsibility to follow them to the best of your ability. What consumsed your thinking, the solutions that fire you up, these are the things you must create or inspire.

We live in a world where things are easier than they seem. Things just happen fast. We are more connected digitally and physically than ever.

Simultaneously we live in a world with more financial pressure than ever before. The system is tight and doesn’t tolerate misfits as well as it did in teh 50s when people walked out of school into a job.

But you can play around the system and dance to your own tune. As Jobs said in the video, he dropped out of uni and never graduated. But he existed. Apple started in his parents garage and he was in his late 20s before he thought of moving out of there. Money was tight. It was not ‘a life’ by social standards.

But he was driven and foolish and believed in his ideas and visions. And aren’t we all glad he did, because he pulled the modern era of computing together from the bits and peices that lay unrecognised in the corners of the tech world.

Follow your heart and shape the world. Like Steve we will all be dead soon and we are already naked before eternity.

Notzarella might be over tomorrow. But like the many things I have done before that empowered me for this project, I’m following invisible dots along an unknowable trajectory. All I have to do is wake up driven, dedicated, foolish and believe in my own billiance, which I do.

And I believe in yours too. Take that for granted from now on.

Christmas and New Year’s Letter to the World

Ali — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:39:00 +0000

Stop exploding, maiming and blaming each other.

Take the leap of faith and start trusting, accepting and supporting each other.

Have the best 2012 possible.