Emotionally Organic: More Peopley People
Joel Salatin is the owner of Polyface Farms, a pastoral functional “beyond organic” farm that raises cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys and rabbits, produces eggs and milk, grows corn and a number of other vegetables. Joel refers to himself as a grass farmer. The slaughter their chickens on site, in an open-air abattoir where everyone who wants can come and watch his chickens die quickly, efficiently and without waste. His chickens are born, eat grubs, wild grasses and mixed grains, and get fresh land to eat off of every few days. They each have space to stretch their wings, get sunlight, and walk around in the open air.The average CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) does not do such things. Chickens at many CAFOs are put 30 to a cage, a cage that has only a wire base that their legs partially stick through and leave them prone to injury. Because of the confinement they peck at themselves and those around them, leaving wounds that lead to infection... something that is counteracted with clipping off the tips of their beaks and pumping them full of antibiotics that make their way into our eggs. They are fed mass-produced genetically modified corn and the fat from cows and sometimes their own deceased siblings. These chickens produce less egg-like eggs, flat eggs, eggs that take twice as any eggs to make the flavor needed in recipes. They are force-starved near the end of life to force their bodies to lay one last round of eggs before being sent to slaughter.This may not sound like much of a compliment, but to me the [pastorally grown] chicken smelled and tasted exactly like a chicken. Liz voiced her approval in similar terms, pronouncing it a more chickeny chicken. Which is to say, I suppose, that it chimed with that capitalized idea of Chicken we hold in our heads but seldom taste anymore. So what accounted for it? The grass? The grubs? The exercise? I know what Joel [Salatin] wold have said: When chickens get to live like chickens, they'll taste like chickens too.-Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's DilemmaThis rant is not about chickens. Or more chickeny chickens. This rant is about learning to be more peoply people.I stared at the quote at the quote and was struck. It hit me full on why I have been happier and more fulfilled in so many ways lately.It hit me that I have a been a more Leey Lee.Lee, it seems, is not someone who likes waking up at 7am each morning to hit the same day job. Not just that, he thrives under deadlines and has his battery fueled sometimes by 10 hours of sleep but other times, equally powerfully, by three hours of sleep combined with great sex and long hours of conversation. Lee is the kind of human who enjoys being challenged, and can only work so long without peer to peer face time before his ideas turn towards non-helpful ones. Lee is happy to eat the same meal four days in a row, and who works better during the day if his outside world can be as organized as he wants his inside world to be that day... and yet find refueling through watcing a movie almost every day he's home. He's a big believer that getting the job done well often matters more than who exactly does it or how it gets done.Lee's needs, my needs (let's come back to first person, shall we?) are not the needs of Ming, my partner. Ming likes to go to bed oftentimes by 8pm, and be up at dawn. Ming is fueled by personal mantras and vision boards. She finds comfort in counting food points and having protocol terms for every action she commands those under service to her must do. Her world is served by regular hot tub dips and surfing, curling up with her dogs and eating home-cooked meals.Neither of us are wrong.What makes Lee more Leey is not what makes Ming more Mingy! And not just that, having Ming do what Lee does will not make Ming more Leey or more Mingy. Instead it has a high chance of making Ming only partially herself, a flat version of her, because what makes a chicken more chickeny is not what will make a pig more piggy.Chickens can survive, and be turned into meat making machines, using simplified systems. Corn and fat calories go in, meat calories come out. We've even bred a “better” chicken... a chicken who can grow big and produce more edible desired meat per calorie of intake and square inch provided. Go team CAFO!However, that chicken is not especially chickeny. Sometimes, its not even remotely chickeny. In fact, in many chicken products, chicken “flavor” is added back in- check out the paragraph-long list on that ingredient box some time.I feel as if the world has turned us, as emotional humans, into CAFO humans. Automate the system. Give us each the same food stuffs, give us each the same sleep requirements, give us each the same sets of molds to fit into... and we produce the most human that contributes to society per hour of energy invested. But does it work? Or have we become humans that need human “flavor” added back in, having never acquired or forgotten the human flavors we each have the capacity of carrying?“But wait,” I hear it argued, “there are so many molds to choose from. Oh, right! Academic, Jock, Artist, Politico... can't I just find a mold that fits my needs? Can't we each just fill up a space as allocated in society, and sit quietly back in the cages available?Perhaps we can. But I have found that the cages available to Lee are not making Lee as Leey as he could be (or is that bee-y?). I can survive, even produce in society, within those molds. I have the capacity to sleep 8 hours a night, wake, get up, do a job, go home, be in socially directed relationships, etc. And yet, and yet, when I have walked that route I survived, I produced, but I did not thrive.Not just did I not thrive, but I did not produce as quality of stuff in the world as I do now that I am living more like, well, Lee needs to thrive. That Lee needs to be more Leey. I write more, sleep deeper, have more in depth conversations, speak better, make better food, connect with more integrity with strangers and friends alike. I travel better, fuck better, and dream deeper.I have the complete capacity to write, sleep, converse, speak, cook, connect, travel, fuck and dream living my prescribed life as per the mold I was given. I have the ability to wander through a simplified systems life. But I am not the Leey Lee I want to be.“Ok,” the pause comes, “but aren't farm chickens produced in an automate manner? All the chickens are treated the same way.” Absolutely. And you know what, I think some humans can be too.We are all unique little snowflakes, don't get me wrong. But there are shared ingredients of needs that many of us need. There are many people who might look at what makes Ming more Mingy and go- ooo, me too please! Does doing those things make you more Mingy, or more authentically and emotionally valid as You? Probably number two is more likely (unless you are one of her fans, in which case, cool, good luck with becoming Mingy).There are many humans who are happy to wake in the morning and do 8 hours of work each day. Hooray, go you. That is fantastic. Seriously, no sarcasm intended. I actually envy you at times, because I wish I could be Leey in that system.It means you share a set of needs with another creature on this planet. Roses and Willows both need sunshine, but that does not make a Willow a Rose. Both Roses and Willows need nutrients and complex interactions with the ground soil. That still does not make a Willow a Rose. Eventually we will compare the growth cycle, input needs and outputs of a Rose and a Willow and find differences in both inputs, or, when similar inputs are given, different outputs are derived.Let's apply that to Lee and Ming (perhaps at a hyper-simplified level, done with love Ming).Lee and Ming wake up at 8am. Ming feels groggy for having slept in so late, and her back hurts. Lee feels groggy and wants to punch something. Both stumble towards the shower, and get clean using the same shampoo. Ming's hair tangles, Lee's is hyper-slick and shiny now. Ming brushes out her hair while Lee gets dressed. Ming eventually gets dressed too, and they make breakfast. Lee scrambles two eggs and veggies for each of them. Each is plated up. Lee devours it all and is still hungry, Ming has food leftover and feels like she overate.Both were given the same inputs, and yet different outputs occurred. Both Ming and Lee like sleep. Both Ming and Lee use shampoo. Both Ming and Lee like eggs and veggies. These are not disputed.But the volume, application, style and details of each will change the outcome of life quality production for each Ming and Lee.How does a version of this tale look where Lee is more Leey and Ming is more Mingy?Ming wakes an hour before Lee. She gets up and wanders around the house and takes her vitamins. She works out and meditates, or gets some email done. Lee's alarm goes off and he growls at it, hits snooze. Ming brings in a glass of water to his bedside, says I love you Sir, and sneaks away again before a pillow gets thrown. She hops in the shower and uses her shampoo, the smell of coconut and the sound of running water easing Lee into waking when the snooze alarm goes off the second time.Lee stumbles into the bathroom, swats Ming on the ass who laughs, and showers using the cheap shampoo as nothing seems to kill his hair. Ming stars working on her makeup and beauty prep rituals, while Lee's speed shower has him out and dressed, now cooking breakfast. Ming offers to help, and he 95% of the time says no. She stares at his cooking, and they share stories with one another. He serves up two eggs and veggies on each plate. They both eat. He steals her extra food when she is starting to slow, so that when she's done, she's happy at how full she is and is glad she did not have more food to tempt her.The flavors of everything else on the table had a similarly declarative quality: the roasted corn and lemony rocket salad, and even the peachy Viognier, all of them tasting almost flamboyantly themselves, their flavors forming a bright sequence of primary colors. There was nothing terribly subtle about this meal, but everything about it tasted completely in character.-Michael PollanWhat would happen if each of us had the opportunity to act more in character with what we in fact are as individual people? Might we taste and become more truly, well, in character?What if queer folk could be unabashedly queer?If polyamorists could contentedly be polyamorous?If dominant personalities could be in relationships where they get to engage in their dominant nature?If slaves could serve as their hearts called out?If artists could make art that their souls longed to make?If instead of having to spend so much energy trying to hide who we are in our workplace, from our families... from ourselves- we instead were simply able to be who and what is, well... completely in character.Might we, as people, come to be more peopley people?Might humanity, as a whole, become a more authentic and sustainable tapestry of human-ness?