Leaving Home!
02/16/07 14:51
Leaving
home. So what does it really mean...
Leaving
home. So what does it really mean to leave home? Most
people believe that it happened when they turned 18
and left their parents house; however, I would beg to
differ and that most people have never even thought
about leaving home.
In our society, we are programmed with beliefs that do not necessarily suit us and the process of leaving home is the act of questioning these beliefs. While I have been questioning my beliefs for quite some time; I have just recently found what it means when they say, “you can’t go home.”
I went to a lecture last week on peace. The lecture was held by a group of students on the UCI campus. The presenter was Will Tuttle, Phd. He was speaking about his book The World Peace Diet. The days leading up the lecture, I had a sense that there was a huge change coming. Just as I had suspected, change was eminent. That evening after the lecture, Jamie and I decided to go vegan. Yes, vegan! What a whirl wind. So many changes came with it. We were already vegetarian, but I didn’t even realize how many foods that appear to be vegetarian actually contain bits and pieces of animals or use animal parts to be processed. Here is the interesting part: the people in our family were really put out by the idea of us being vegan. Let us be cognizant of the fact that they thought it was “ok” to be vegetarian, but some how being vegan pushed their boundaries too far.
Interestingly, there is a psychological concept that applies to the experience of leaving home; it is called top down processing and how memory affects perception. If you were to hear sine-wave speech you would not recognize what was being said and it would be inaudible; however, once you learn what the sound is supposed to be saying, you will hear those words every time you hear it. The thing about this sort of memory is that you cannot ever go back to hearing the sine-wave speech the same way you originally heard the speech. When I decided to question the practices of the meat industry and opened myself up to the reality of those practices, I then realized that I can never go back to my old ways. In turn, I left home just in that one belief.
So they say you can never go home again, but I say, who would want to!
In our society, we are programmed with beliefs that do not necessarily suit us and the process of leaving home is the act of questioning these beliefs. While I have been questioning my beliefs for quite some time; I have just recently found what it means when they say, “you can’t go home.”
I went to a lecture last week on peace. The lecture was held by a group of students on the UCI campus. The presenter was Will Tuttle, Phd. He was speaking about his book The World Peace Diet. The days leading up the lecture, I had a sense that there was a huge change coming. Just as I had suspected, change was eminent. That evening after the lecture, Jamie and I decided to go vegan. Yes, vegan! What a whirl wind. So many changes came with it. We were already vegetarian, but I didn’t even realize how many foods that appear to be vegetarian actually contain bits and pieces of animals or use animal parts to be processed. Here is the interesting part: the people in our family were really put out by the idea of us being vegan. Let us be cognizant of the fact that they thought it was “ok” to be vegetarian, but some how being vegan pushed their boundaries too far.
Interestingly, there is a psychological concept that applies to the experience of leaving home; it is called top down processing and how memory affects perception. If you were to hear sine-wave speech you would not recognize what was being said and it would be inaudible; however, once you learn what the sound is supposed to be saying, you will hear those words every time you hear it. The thing about this sort of memory is that you cannot ever go back to hearing the sine-wave speech the same way you originally heard the speech. When I decided to question the practices of the meat industry and opened myself up to the reality of those practices, I then realized that I can never go back to my old ways. In turn, I left home just in that one belief.
So they say you can never go home again, but I say, who would want to!