Why lately, being a person has been hard

There’s a community that I am part of. To loosely describe the people in the space, they are politically aware, left-leaning, mostly consisting of women or queer people. It was delightful, honestly, to be part of a community like this. I have made a lot of friends and met a lot of people through it, and I am truly grateful for it.

Lately though, I have been experiencing a lot of physical fatigue from just existing. I have been trying to place my finger on it, and honestly, there is no one answer for it. I am sure no one thing can be fully the reason for the fatigue I am experiencing. There are probably different aspects to it, but there is particularly one aspect that has been playing on my mind for a while which I want to talk about.

In fact, the reason I was even inspired to write about this is because of a conversation that brewed on that group.

An innocent night, and the group is bustling with activity. I open it and see there’s a bunch of people talking for AI and talking against it. The ones talking for it are talking about the convenience, how much it supports us now, how it makes things efficient and easy, and how it is a wonderful technology that saves time and effort. And there were people fighting back against that perspective, talking about how it is making us dumber, how it is wired to replace us, how the pros don’t outweigh the cons, and how the worst aspect of it is the environmental damage that comes from the use of AI.

I was a silent spectator. I do have an opinion, in fact a very strong one. However, I decided to opt out of that conversation for the time being.

Just when I was ready to head to bed, I saw someone state that if we’re all being conscientious and talking about the perils and the environment, then it is important to talk about how a lot of anti-AI people are still meat consumers, and are unwilling to go vegan. They said that the meat industry is one of the most environmentally harmful and unsustainable industries, one that also causes a lot of ecological damage and contributes to animal cruelty.

It was the middle of the night. The message was staring at my face. I am half asleep, and part of me says, let it go. Another part of me was nowhere close to letting this go. Not at this point. Not at this moment. I was ready to get into the chat.

Before I could pull myself out, there I was, typing really fast.

I went on to talk about how all of what was said about the meat industry was true. At the same time, going vegan is not the “sustainable” solution that everybody thinks it is. Going vegan is a lifestyle choice, and it isn’t necessarily a solution to capitalism and the industrialisation of the food industry. If anything, vegan food when mass-produced has its own impact on the environment. In that way, it isn’t necessarily the sustainable choice that we all think it is, the one that saves the planet. It could very well be destroying the planet while we produce large chunks of vegan meat or plant milk in large supply chains.

No one is stopping anyone from turning vegan, but if turning vegan has become a moral virtue that determines who is better, then we need to have a different conversation.

Are we all ready to go back to the village? To completely give up mass-produced items, vegan or not? Are we all ready to grow our food and rear our own animals that produce dairy and meat? None of us are truly willing to go that far. So to fool ourselves into believing that we are living in this fast-paced city where convenience is the norm, and to think that any of us are truly living sustainable lives, is us gaslighting ourselves.

I don’t claim to be living sustainably, and I certainly don’t think that buying a product that has “sustainable” on the label is making me any more virtuous than someone who doesn’t.

Then I got into the conversation of purity politics in India, and how food preferences have always been a way to categorise people. So when we bring veganism into a moral virtue of who is more conscious, sustainable, or who cares about the planet more, that’s just another new-age, repackaged way to perpetuate casteist ideas.

Obviously, my phrasing wasn’t as direct as it is now. I suppose that’s the part about being a therapist that sucks. I recheck my phrasing a thousand times to make sure that the landing is smooth. I recognise that there is no point in being blunt, as that most often doesn’t hit the spot.

Some degree of emotional labour later, I get stunned by some of the responses I receive on the chat. Someone goes on to say that culture is not an excuse to continue eating non-veg, as there are so many things that are cultural that we have given up because of the regressiveness of the practice itself.

Casteist much?

The point on the industrialisation of the meat industry, and the ecological damage as a consequence, was missed. Was it because I was inarticulate? Or was it because we’ve decided to come into a conversation with our points sedimented?

I went on to further clarify. Since their question was that if we’re all so conscientious, why do we still choose to eat meat but protest against AI, here’s how I decided to clarify the main point: that there is a sustainable and an unsustainable way to consume meat or vegan food. However, there is no sustainable way to use AI. There is no such thing as ethical AI. And we certainly cannot compare a cultural practice that prevailed for ages with something that came up for human convenience a few years ago.

They went on to say, “Hmmm, but still that doesn’t take away that the meat industry is the most unsustainable industry.”

Like I said, it did feel like they had come in with their mind made up, ready to make mine up. I don’t see the world in black and white. I do know that the industrial meat industry is cruel. But there are two important things I am taking away from this conversation.

The first is that I am looking at a reformist and ecologically supportive way to consume meat. I was bullied for being a non-vegetarian all my life. Going to a Brahmin school made me feel like there was something wrong with me or about me. We had to be hush-hush when we ordered meat or fried fish in the house, trying to air it out without “disturbing” our neighbours who were all vegetarian.

I cannot be bullied into turning vegan.

As someone who practices yoga, I have noticed my tendency to crave meat, sugar, and processed food reduces when I am actively practising. I can go for days without it, even without anybody telling me what to do. Maybe if I decide to take that route, and my body naturally stops craving it, I might just go down that path. But I will not be bullied or arm-twisted into veganism or vegetarianism.

The second thing, slightly unrelated but a realisation that came to me, was that a bunch of women (it somehow always has to be us, because we’re the ones expected to carry the burden of doing the right thing) are fighting about who is more conscientious or who cares more about the planet.

When in reality, the very reason we are all in a group that talks about leftist politics is because we care. We are here despite it being somehow easier to be tone-deaf and apolitical in this world.

Honestly, I don’t care if someone is more gung-ho about saving the planet through their vegan practices, while mine are more anti-AI. The net result is two individuals having done their best, given their circumstances and their own histories, picking the battle they want to fight.

I am a therapist. I work offline mostly, and I do see clients online as well. My main source of finding clients is via referrals. I have clients, colleagues, friends, and family refer people to me, so I could literally go off the online grid today and I wouldn’t have to worry about my work. That being said, not a lot of people have the privilege to make that choice, simply because their survival depends on being on the internet and having jobs that require them to use AI.

Just because I know that there is no sustainable AI doesn’t mean that the struggles of people who are in AI-first jobs don’t exist. It doesn’t mean that they don’t have mouths to feed or livelihoods to support.

That being said, someone from that demographic, aka my husband, literally just deleted ChatGPT a few days ago. He said, “I need to use this for the sake of my work, but I won’t be using it for my personal needs.”

Not everybody can make radical choices or all-or-nothing choices.

Similarly, just because I know that the industrialised meat industry is unsustainable doesn’t mean that I haven’t been made to feel oppressed for the way in which my ancestors have lived, and how they have taught me to live. This is what my body supports. I need it for my nutritional requirements.

That being said, I have decided to buy meat from a local vendor instead of buying from a large industry that mass-produces it for profit. I am sure it still counts as animal cruelty, since the birds are still caged and then slaughtered. It may never be as sustainable as the ecological practices that were practised pre-industrialisation, but I can try to do lesser harm.

In an ideal world, I will be living on land that belongs to this earth, and is happy and nourished because I choose to plant different kinds of food, let the soil breathe, and let the animals run around and be happy. Then they nourish me, and I will bury myself in the same land and become food for the microorganisms that live there.

I am not there at this point in my life to be able to do that.

That said, I am no longer willing to be bullied for being a non-vegetarian.

The second point, which I digressed from again, is that we are all here with our own personal histories and circumstances, trying our best, and that is all we can do. No one choice is better or morally superior than the other.

And I am tired of leftist spaces fighting amongst themselves to prove their superiority.