I ate fast food today after nearly a year and a half without it. I went for some crispy chicken pieces and an ice tea from one of the international fast food chains. The kids insisted on it, and fast food menus are pretty cheap as you know. We used to eat in fast food places every time we visited a shopping mall. I wasn’t entirely conscious about it back then, but now, after not eating it for a year and a half, I clearly understand what I was actually doing to my body.
Right now, even as I write these lines, my body feels something long forgotten. It knocked me for six. My fingers don’t move. I’m running on fumes, and my mood is quite terrible. I cannot perceive things properly. I’ve been committing this very villainy against my body for years, and I would like to sincerely apologize to my body for it. I thought I was feeding it, but it seems this isn’t what I’ve really been doing.
I then got something else from another international “capital.” It was a pamphlet about a newly discovered business sector that after becoming widely capitalized, it became clear how big of a potential it had. They call it “wellness.” Since humanity has started to stir up a little, searching for new ways of life and questioning their circumstances, the capitalist system sees no harm in inventing a new decoy to prey on them, just like it did with the fast food business… We worked you like slaves, humanity; exploited you to the fullest extent; and fed you with meager carrots for you to fight over. Now you have a chance to feel like you’re born again, to have a happier and more positive way of living. Come see our wellness center, set in our new hotel right in the middle of the wonderful island of I-know-not-what. We have masters imported from India whose oils will wash you from head to toe, and even your asshole, and you’ll relax so much that you’ll willingly blow all your money on us!
Then what, you ask? Then you’ll return to your place in our system of slavery, but don’t worry, we’ll give you some tips and techniques and some ten-item bullet lists. These lists, such as “The Art of Leading a Happy Life in Ten Steps,” will be squeezed into the magazines that we publish merely to get money from advertisements. We get our penniless journalists to make them anyway, and even we don’t know what they’re saying. Then there it goes, a new you, a new humanity! Hurray, now you’ve found the meaning of life!
There’s no real difference between fast food and this “fast wellness.” None of their investors care about humanity. The only thing they value is business—namely statistics, growth targets, profit margins, and money—yet the main content of one of these courses is the requirement of nutrition, and the other is self-knowledge…
You can visit the best spa centers, work with the best meditation coaches, spend years and countless dollars with the best and the most expensive of gurus, but you’ll go nowhere fast if you don’t take that step deep within yourself. In this case, the best you can do is to put on airs when appropriate, saying things like, “Oh, honey. I’ve been doing yoga for years and working with such-and-such gurus. I’ve even been to Zanzibar for it!” You won’t even realize you end up gaining nothing…
If you’ve taken the step, you won’t need all these things in the first place. Haven’t you ever heard the words of God, “If you take one step forward, I’ll take ten”? When you take that step, life will come running to you. You can still go to Zanzibar and work with masters if you have the financial means, but it will then be just to experience, enjoy, and learn from the opportunity rather than with the “Here’s the money. Now enlighten me” mentality. Enlightenment, in no uncertain terms, doesn’t ride on money; it’s a spiritual thing. Fast-wellness products might fool you for a while into thinking you’re feeding your hunger, but they will eventually get even with you, just like fast food did with me today.
I’m seriously sorry to my body for so insensitively shoving all that garbage down its throat and thinking I was feeding its hunger just fine. It’s been a marvelous body for me. Who knows what other garbage I’ve gobbled down in the name of feeding my spiritual hunger. Anyhow, that’s a whole other topic for a completely different article…
I wish you a healthy journey through life. A journey you’ll take with healthy foods, for both your spirit and body.
