We live in a time where guilt is both frequent and intense—especially within certain circles of ancestry, income, and inheritance. Guilt has become so manifest that we are to feel remorse now when we consume other life. I would request that you (please) take a moment with this thought. As a heterotroph, humans must consume other beings (or portions of beings) in order to derive the calories and nutrition they need to survive. They are like many thousands of other mammals—they can’t absorb energy from the sun directly but need to consume beings who can (autotrophic plants) or being who eat the beings who can (other heterotrophs). Some of these other beings that humans consume feed primarily upon plants, some eat primarily other animals, and some a diverse mix. And none of these heterotrophic beings feel guilt for consuming the foods their bodies are designed to ingest, digest, and excrete save for one: humans. It has become so habitual to feel guilt in this age of wokeness that we now even feel remorse for engaging in biologically necessary behavior.
Each religious-like sect of foodies has their reasons why humans should eat this or that kind of food. I don’t care to go into any of this now. I am completely over any calculations about water or grain use that could go directly to humans when we eat other heterotrophs. They all utilize assumptions that homogenous the world’s population and biota so that such calculations can have meaning. This is analogous to an engineer making everything into cubes and spheres to assist with developing a complex project—but at least the engineer will eventually come back to the real world (unlike many fanatical food factions). For now, I ask you to leave aside all your ideas about nutrition, evolution, religion, morals, and such and just absorb this statement: you don’t have to feel any guilt for consuming life because you (and all other beings) are here to engage in the Original Agreement.
What is the Original Agreement? Well, not to steal from Avatar, but that movie script nailed it: all energy is borrowed, and eventually you have to give it back. Written another way, you (as a heterotroph) get to eat other beings without guilt, but one day you need to give your body back. Your body will become food for other organisms who will take your flesh and bones, break them down, and send them back into the trophic web as building blocks for other beings. You eat food, then you become food. That’s it. All you need to do is give your body back. That is the Original Agreement.
As you might expect, there are some who fail to uphold their portion of the agreement (or, at least, they try to evade their end of the agreement). Our bodies are meant to feed other lives when we are done using them. But, industrial humans seek immortality, and if they can’t have in the life, they want it in death for both their spirit and body. So, they use procedures, various chemical agents, and even tombs to prevent spoilage and “preserve” the body for extended lengths of time. This is an apt description of what is occurring under those conditions: take, take, take, take, take, take, take, and try not to give back. And all those chemicals eventually leek out and leave underground plumes of contamination in the soil and water. Perhaps all this guilt about feeding ourselves is the remnant conscious of those who did not uphold their end of the Original Agreement. Those spirits, who now feel guilt, infect all of us with that sentiment.
I encourage you to not feel shame for being an organism that eats other beings. There may be reasons for why you do not feel good about your food choices, but do not confuse what you are eating with the necessity of eating. I’ve encountered people who have found themselves wandering in terrible mine fields of thought by focusing on the perceived harm they cause each day just eating to be alive. I have watched those same people observe with serenity the sign of ostrich fern croziers plucked by the mouths of deer only to be upset at the “impact” of a conscientious human harvesting the same species for food. You were born an omnivorous heterotroph, and you maintain your life through eating other life. Just give your body back and all is made right (from the perspective of the lives taken to sustain your life). Through this simple act, you uphold to the Original Agreement.
I encourage you to consider this agreement and how you will sustain the contract between the living and the dead that has existed since life began on this planet. To do so, you may have to let go of a lot of cultural indoctrination. Is it, truly, worth breaking our promise and polluting the world so that people can look at us for a few moments during a ceremony? There is a cycle that has been occurring for millions and millions of years. That rhythm, which follows from the Original Instructions set forth for life by creation, has formed some the most amazing acts of cooperation, where even predators ultimately become food for the species they chased. Only within a culture of progress could we interrupt this cycle and believe that there will be no consequences (to the living or the dead).