So I’m lying in my bed right now watching this show about Sharks. It’s about how there is still a large market for shark finning (de-finning) and how horrible they treat sharks. It’s really interesting. These shark huntsmen go into the waters, catch a shark, cut their fins off and throw them back in. Or they just capture them and bring them in and kill them.
This may be a reach – but this is how my brain and thoughts work – I wonder, watching this – how did we become a world that allows such behaviour? How did we become a world where we completely disregard the greater good and focus instead, solely on the well being of our own independent ventures?
This show just had the advocate go to several different stores along the east coast of Australia and buy shark meat. She had it tested and 2 of the samples were over the legal limit of mercury to be consumed. One was 300% over the limit. It’s scary. She’s going to go to the supermarket chain and ask them to take shark meat off their shelf… The show isn’t over so I’ll let you know how it goes.
However, I have a feeling this isn’t the first time or only thing that has this problem and is being handled with irresponsibility.
This isn’t even about being vegan. Being healthy and thinking that things are still simple is a thing of the past, I’m afraid. It makes me afraid to know that any sort of morality or public service or duty can be sold out for money, it seems.
Yet on the same hand, I feel like people as a whole aren’t happy. What is this? Maybe people just bitch and complain and are secretly happy on the inside? But overall, when they think about the state of the world, I can’t imagine any one is proud of it. It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you are on either. If you are an open minded, free spirited or tree hugging liberal there are problems to fight against, if you are a close minded, tight assed or racist conservative there are problems to fight against.
If you hate people who say “hashtag” that’s spreading hate in the world. If you hate when cops kill people, there’s some more hate. If you hate when you have a feeling your government is wrong and screwing everything up … that is hatred. It doesn’t matter how large or small, we are all contributing with negativity.
We have our precious little opinions and beliefs and know that to be law. We spread that to be law. I remember growing up be a Crest toothpaste family, but my best friend’s family was a Colgate family. I remember scoffing a little when I saw that red tube of toothpaste in their bathroom and thinking “why can’t they use the blue tube… the better kind.”
Small prejudices engrained in our mental make up that help us make choices, decisions and judgements. It’s sort of like a choose your own adventure game where we think we’re making big strides but really it’s a million of little hopscotch boxes that we’re jumping on so quickly we don’t see them for what they are.
That could be it, we just got ahead of ourselves. Like an arrogant toddler who thinks they can sign up for cross country relays after they took their first step. We’ve gone to ludicrous speed and overshot the mark. Now, too proud to slow down and too scared to stop we continue on at a speed that is both unhealthy and unsustainable.
Desperate for the next best thing. Desperate to be special, stand out, be something or someone worth noticing. I’m just as guilty of it too.
If you stop for 5 minutes and reflect on the choices you make throughout a day. I mean break them down and think about it from a whole different POV. Start with the small ones and work your way through the maze of questions that should follow. Rock your own world – try and figure out why you really got out of bed today. To work? Because you have to? Because you were looking forward to _________________?
Why did you wear THAT outfit? Why did you buy that outfit? What inspired you to wear a floral blouse? 5 years ago you wouldn’t been caught dead in those clothes.Why did you have that for lunch? Can you name and pronounce everything on the ingredients list of the foods you ate today? Why did you make that snarky comment to or about a co-worker?
Challenge yourself to challenge yourself.
Let me know how it goes and if anything interesting comes up out of this exercise. You owe it to yourself.
Update: The supermarket chain Woolsworth did not take Shark off their shelves.
Adventures of the untoward 