Limits - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 105

more aware of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors. I'm no longer held captive by the past. I've
learned how to learn and change. And, for better or for worse, I've been granted the wisdom to
question my culture.
Figure 5-5. Run, bike, swim.
At first it was little things. I quit soda and didn't miss it. So why did I drink it in the first place?
Could it be the ubiquity and power of advertising? How much does it shape what we want?
And how can we boost immunity? I read that stretching before exercise is harmful. It weakens
muscles and invites injury. All my life I'd stretched before soccer games and races. Now every-
one does it but me. I only stretch in the shower. At first my deviance was minor, but the distance
only grew. In time I ran so far I left behind beefy portions of culture.
For instance, the more I read about nutrition, the more I questioned meat. My quest for health
led me to study the ethics and environmental impact of our culture's carnivorism. I did a lot of
reading and thinking, but it was Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer that did the trick. My
wife begged me not to read it, but I'm a red pill kinda guy. So I consumed the topic and turned
myself into a flexitarian, which means I annoy everyone. My wife is upset. She's a great cook,
and I've cast a shadow over her recipes. Omnivores are unsettled. My choice invites them to
question their own. And vegans are irate. How can I see the truth but continue to drink milk?
I'm convinced that normal factory farming practices are deeply immoral. The environmental im-
pact is catastrophic, and the abuse of antibiotics and growth hormones is hazardous to human
health. But it's the cruelty to animals that pushes me over the edge. My moral circle is a fuzzy
set. My family is at the center. That's a bias with which I'm at peace. But I fail to see a clear mor-
al line between human and non-human animals. I don't want to cause any sentient being to suf-
fer or die. Of course, I fail at that too. I live in a suburb. I drive a car. I pay taxes. I buy fruits and
vegetables from farms that use pesticides. I own an iPhone. I eat pepperoni pizza with our teen-
age daughters. There is no moral high ground. We all cause pain and suffering. All humans are
hypocrites. All of us are complicit in the crimes of civilization.