What We Eat Determines Who We Are
There's an old saying that 'a person with his back to the sky can be eaten' – it refers to animals in a quadrupedal, back-upright position that can be eaten. The origin of this saying is now, no one knows who said it or in what circumstances it was derived. However, from this saying, we can perceive a lingering 'refugee' mentality.
What is the 'refugee mentality'? It is a deep-seated obsession with food and 'eating.' After all, in environments of scarcity, not having food means death. Although many people have long since enjoyed a life of abundance, yet, out of fear of poverty and hunger, the persistent craving for food remains, impossible to shake off. Ultimately, this reverence for food is projected into real life, becoming a pursuit of unfamiliar ingredients.
Enjoying food is not wrong, after all, diet is one of humanity's life interests. However, putting excessive energy and pursuit into food can seem narrow-minded and short-sighted, as if there is nothing of significance in life besides eating and food. We know that the source of this recent health incident may be due to certain animals that were treated as food. If no one had eaten these things, if no one had sold these things, could we not have avoided this disaster?
The disasters caused by eating unfamiliar ingredients have not been a first-time occurrence. Seventeen years ago, SARS originated from contaminated raccoon dogs. History repeats itself, but we have not learned anything from it. During this period, the most frequently reported news is that experts believe the source may be bats or other non-domesticated animals.
Later, I saw many 'bat soup' photos online. To be honest, seeing those bats with wings and grinning mouths, resembling 'death gods,' made me shudder. Later, I felt a deep sense of disgust. I don't know what the benefits of eating them are, whether nutritional or phonetic, I just found it unbelievable. In today's society, most people have long since shed the state of food scarcity. Why does the 'refugee mentality' still dominate, even through the 'bat soup'?
There's a 'food price list' circulating online, featuring peacock, wolf cubs, camels, squirrels, hedgehogs, even 'troublemaking' raccoon dogs, all still find their place on the list. Over decades, some of us have dressed in respectable clothes and spoken in dignified and impressive terms, but we have not changed our inner 'refugee' psychology.
In the book *Taming and Desire: A Dark History of the Relationship Between Humans and Animals*, there is a passage: 'Desire has never been absent in human history. The history of the relationship between humans and animals is a record of humans pursuing desires through animals.' I don't know how many times history will repeat itself after a 'disaster from the mouth' lesson, nor how long humans will recklessly maintain the mindset that 'everything is controllable.'
Some of us have no sense of reverence for life, only being interested in turning other lives into food. The saying 'a person with his back to the sky can be eaten' carries a sense of innocent arrogance and pride, but it actually reveals a profoundly impoverished state of mind, as if 'eating' is the most important thing in the world, seemingly demonstrating a multitude of ways to enrich one's life through 'eating.' This is a misplaced priority, because the purpose of eating is to give us the energy to pursue more beautiful things in life, not to make 'eating' itself the most beautiful thing in life.
In short, what we eat will determine who we are. Restrained and moderate diets, even if bland, can show a pure and noble inner state; unrestrained and greedy food, even if delicious, still exposes the tragic poverty of the mind.
