June 15, 2025
“The world is on fire, my life is bonkers busy and I’m supposed to be sitting here worrying about ‘ingredients’?” Well, we shouldn’t really be actively worrying about anything; but all of the stupid shit that’s been making our lives ‘bonkers’, can be worrisome.
Many of the things we carry an unhealthy amount of stress over, ironically exist outside of our personal control panel. News headlines, traffic, the weather, everyone else’s drama- are just a few of the countless ways in which we unintentionally absorb and induce unnecessary tension in our daily lives. The world is quite mad, but the fact that we can let it all in and consume us to the point of causing us health issues, is just…bonkers.
Magnifying Class
What’s even more crazy is that these negative stimuli to which I’m referring, are purely external ideas that are suspended in the cloud of our consciousness. This outer stress might influence the way we feel or even make us late for an obligation (it usually does, that’s why it’s stressful), but what we experience internally during these moments is mostly self-generated. In other words, we stress out, not because of the object of outer stress itself, but because of the way we feel about it.
All of this has a tendency to leave us drained and downright careless when it comes to approaching the most basic human functions, such as self-care, diet and proper nutrition. When we let it all in, we let it all in and the appropriate filter for such mental detritus seems to evaporate into thin air. Clearly we could all stand to be more self-aware, but the entire system of consciousness is endlessly convoluted, so the challenging part seems to be knowing where in the hell to begin. In my experience, it starts with what is accessible to us in terms of choice.
Whether or not the exhaustion we feel from outer stress causes lazy personal habits or whether we’re just used to soaking it all up, there are actually a few buttons that we’ve always been able to access and control. A lot of it has to do with our surroundings: which apartment or neighborhood we live in, with whom we choose to socialize; but, again, these are big, externally based ideas. I write a lot about the “bigger picture”, but in this case I think it’s worth zooming in…keep going.
The frequent, daily “little” things we do, without thought or consideration, actually add up: the water we’re drinking, the food we’re ingesting, the care-products we apply to our skin and pores, the mattress on which we’re resting, the fabric of the clothes we wear, the air we’re inhaling (Febreze doesn’t help); all of these tiny things that come into contact with, or enter our bodies, may be categorized as inner stress– if we so choose.
Transcendental Vegetation
“Ugh, I’d be vegetarian if I didn’t love bacon so much, it’s just too damn good”. So were cigarettes at one point. People generally don’t want to see how the sausage is made or to hear that the deodorant they purchased because it smells good, contains aluminum and a whole list of other chemical agents linked to hormonal and reproductive disruptance, as well as skin irritation and increased allergen sensitivity. Talk about a wet blanket, when all we want is pigs in a blanket.
We don’t allow ourselves the time or energy to drop into the rabbit hole of examining ingredients, because then we’re just heaping more information onto our plate. Speaking of plates, we barely use them anymore because we’re consuming foods that have been declared abominable health hazards (see our essay On Avoidance). By this measure, it seems as though most people in America have more important things to worry about than their own health; which only measures living and dying.
The success rate of some rehab or weight loss programs. is so low that the needle looks like it’s pointing toward “Ineffective”. These programs aim to help people identify and steer clear of triggers in their lives, but due to many biological and social factors, their circumstances seldom change- when time becomes a personal negative feedback loop. There’s a reason people embark on meditation retreats or ayahuasca rituals- they need a reset, an overhaul.
Time itself is what it takes to develop positive changes in our lives, which is why transcendence seems to work for a lot of people; and the daily grind really only works when it’s fulfilling, made from the stuff that comes from within: mostly desire. This is all a stretch, I know, and I’m certainly not suggesting that psychedelic drugs allow us to skip over the time it would take us to hammer down a good habit or two; quite the contrary.
The reality is that people take all kinds of drugs, undergo a myriad of therapeutic treatments, qualify for extreme medical interventions and might even try that thing called exercise, if they think it will help. Still, we find our way back onto the hamster wheel, one that is often powering someone else’s machine.
What I’m saying is that we can show up early and stay late at work, attending meetings and answering emails on an organization’s behalf; but when do we ever conduct meetings with ourselves about the list of ingredients we absorb in every minute way, or even just to “check in”?
Don’t Worry, Murray
Succumbing to distractions or false pride, we block these self-conversations out so quickly and what I’m beginning to realize is that we are suffering from an affliction of “learned helplessness”. These are fixed patterns that get harder to penetrate or break over time and perpetual denial. It’s about time we actually start showing up for ourselves, taking inventory of whatever harmful ingredients that may be silently plaguing our health, and removing them.
The other day I saw an elderly gentleman purchasing a ton of local fruits and vegetables, natural supplements and a bunch of other clean goods at our neighborhood organic food market. Upon glancing at his total, he remarked, “Whew, it’s expensive to eat healthy!” The cashier sort of chuckled this off, then he said “but I wish I knew how to do this when I was your age, no doubt I’d be in a lot better shape now if I did.”
This dude attended the meetings with himself, albeit on the back half, and was admittedly far better off for it, but his regret for not doing it sooner struck me, less as an admission, than a message: “Care about this shit now and do it before a doctor tells you it’s necessary if we want to keep living.”
Worrying is what we do when we have no control over what happens. We shouldn’t “worry” about anything, not even ingredients. But maybe we can pay just a little more attention to them.