I'm a vegan's nightmare - a soy story.

Every once in a while I'm trying to do something ethically "good" cooking, so I got this soy chorizo at Trader Joe's. It sat in my fridge for quite a while now. What to do with it?

I did research online and decided I'll do the pure experience and just fry a part of it. Needless to say, there are few other ingredients in the house, and I guess it doesn't mix well with mac'n cheese deluxe.
There would be quinoa there - from another enlightened food shopping spree - but I'm thinking I should not overdo it with health for now.

I could swear one of my hippie friends said it was really great... Really? I'd say it's over spiced crumbs of something, that explode in the pan, if you're not careful. It is edible I admit, unlike some other stuff that vegans claim would be.

Soy chorizo: This is what you get!

To be honest, I am so sorry. I'm feeling terribly bad, that whenever I try to eat animal friendly I don't succeed. In fact, vegetarian convenience food upsets me on a regular basis. Why do they put the crumbs in a plastic foil so that it looks like sausage? One can't even cook it in the sausage-faking wrap. One needs to squeeze it out of there as instructed, messy fingers, hard to dose... just for the sausage feel? I thought vegans or vegetarians don't want a meat feel. Oh well, what do I know? I'm a vegan's nightmare, how can I understand?

I am an O.K. vegan in the sense that I don't keep pets, but occasionally walk my neighbor's under exercised dog. Lots of my shoes are "man made", which I am actually not too proud of either, but having watched the film "earthlings" I should be.

random youtube screenshot of a girl with nifty interior design

I was about to put the trailer in here, but it doesn't reflect the film well. It's nasty. You can watch the movie on youtube in full length for free. It's done very well, and I recommend watching it. Joaquin Phoenix reads it, and Moby does the music. It documents how humans treat animals: as pets, meat, sports, fur, in laboratories, in the military, it's a very comprehensive overview, and reality is quite terrible. Args.

Reality however is reality and it should absolutely not be like that. I am terribly unproud of myself. I support mass meat production with my actions. How much of a difference does it make, when I buy cosmetics that are not animal tested? I plea guilty, and nobody puts me into jail. Opposite, I'm free to do as much harm as I want. And I am not the only one. What a world.

Let's eradicate the issue completely. Why do I need to eat in the first place? I tried not to at the age of 19 - of course that was an art project - and that's a fail. Any type of fasting later on was, which wasn't an art project, but a sad attempt to be hip like all my other fasting hipster friends.
After 2 days of real and book accompanied fasting, I could not stand up out of bed without my circulation. I had to rob on the floor over to my fasting book for first aid and then to the fridge to squeeze a slice of orange into myself. My unscientific art project that didn't have any instructions other then "don't eat" lasted longer and was more fun than that disaster.

It is pretty much proven to me, that one seriously does need to eat. And I have to say, I actually enjoy it a lot. How much better is there, than a nice lobster (boiled alive, preferably teased to be angry, so that its adrenalin makes it extra tasty... ). What creature am I? Is that human?

I'm rather a weakling. I lived vegetarian for a year and a half for ethical reasons. And then the doctor told me I'd have significant lacks of all sorts of vitamins, though I really tried hard to compensate. Weak! It didn't take me a day to eat meat again though, and the doctor was a welcomed excuse. I can't do this! What is human?

I don't believe in beating oneself up over anything either. So I'm not. And also I can pat myself on the shoulder for doing a bunch of really good things with role model character. Still, there is this painful conflict inside of me. Do other people have that too?

Pat the pad. I can't feel a thing. Oh yeah!

The most common answer I get, when I ask "How do you deal with that?" is strikingly simple: "I don't." And then I get to see the sweetest smiles, most innocent and unaffected. Now how do you not deal with something when it's evidently urgent? Would that be human not to deal with it, and I'm not... human I mean? Am I part of a rare species who is doomed?

I hope you can read out of this, that I don't pity myself here. I don't even judge myself significantly. I'm merely following a coherence theory: I understand what pain is, because I can feel it, and I strongly dislike it. It's neither intrinsically good nor bad, it is just something I don't want by nature. I hence can't knowingly inflict pain onto somebody or something else without contradicting and disrespecting myself. But I do. It is illogical, irrational, incoherent and unethical. Bummer.

What to do with the rest of that soy chorizo? Who wants to deal with that? Not.

Let me torture you, abduct you! How does it feel?

Ai Weiwei. What the hell?

China-SS, you suck! (Free Ai Weiwei remix) 

Iphone sketch, 2011

So at the airport the Chinese government just takes him away and for days nobody knows where they keep him.

Think about that. How would you feel, if this happened to you? Or anybody from your family?

I watched swing kids the other day with Daniel. The Nazis, they took people away over night. We were both fighting tears over this movie. The communists, they would have taken away my grandfather, if he wouldn't have fled over night, same day he heard, with 20 bucks in his pocket for a whole family to start a new life in West-Germany.

Ai Weiwei is speaking up. And big time, and what he says is important, and right. Nobody of any political view can doubt that. How can the world remotely tolerate, that he gets put in detention like that? What are they doing to him there? Are they smart enough not to harm him?

This same terror happens to many people every day in all different countries. Unfortunately lots of them are not famous. How is that the hell possible?

Ai Weiwei happens to be a hero - artists and art-lovers know that, but contemporary art is not so present in the main stream. Well in fact, when I stumbled in one of his sunflower-seed piles at Art Basel Miami, and the gallery security stormed at me "Don't touch the art, ahh, ahh, ohh!" They got it really wrong, too.

Ai Weiwei wants people to step on the millions of hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds, that Chinese artisans produced over 3 I think years for a buck fifty a month. Hear it, feel it, step on it! At Tate Modern that's what visitors were supposed to do. How does it feel? How does it feel to discover beauty on top of sweatshop work art exploitation non-democratic hand-crafted mass production?

And you know, from what I see in interviews and videos and performances, Ai Weiwei is a funny man. Humble. He makes billions and billions and rightfully so. He spends them on raising awareness for the bullshit in his country. He gives it back to his folks.

He made that birdsnest for the Chinese Olympics. And he boycotted his own art, because it was abused by propaganda and he hadn't known. Well, he got seriously popular - not in his own country, they don't let him, here in the West. That is great! It hit the right person. A single man making such a big difference, that is great. He's a hero. He really is. And I truly believe in changing the world via art. Why else would I work on social sculpture? Art collectors should give him all their money. I'm all for it.

But for now, just free him. How do you think does it feel? When they take your freedom, when you can't even talk to your family and assure them that it'll be fine, even if you don't know yourself? How do you think does it feel, when you need to fear for days, and a minute becomes eternity? When you need to hold on to your will that nothing and no wrong institution will break you? How do you think is Ai Weiwei feeling for the last 100 hours?

I want to abduct and torture every single one of you! In a nice way, in a consensual way, in a playful and non-harming way. You know, just pushing it a little, just inflicting pain, that doesn't really hurt, just scaring you a tiny bit, just giving you a bit of an impression. This is very doable. This can be done in a safe way. Contact me for your customized experience. I'm dead serious.

How does it feel? If we would know, it would not exist. What do we know and when do we start knowing?