Ostomy Memories of Food

WE ALL HAVE food preferences. Then there’s the distinction between what we like and what we allow ourselves to actually eat. Personal diets are the scourge of true happiness.
Is there anyone who doesn’t like bacon, or ice cream, or a fully loaded hotdog on a bun? Is there anyone who thinks any of those wonderful edibles are good for you?
The great aphorist Ambrose Bierce defined EDIBLE as “good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.” Seven years later, weary of American civilization, he wandered off into Mexico and disappeared for good, probably choking to death on a chimichanga.
Most everyone seems to put on weight as they age. Look at poor Shelley Winters, in her youth a veritable sexpot, but eventually a blimp. “Where do you go to get anorexia?” she whined.
Another unhappy actress, the great Marilyn Monroe, apparently while married to Jewish playwright Arthur Miller, upon being served matzo ball soup three meals in a row, wondered “Isn’t there any other part of the matzo you can eat?”
My own preferred method of dieting is to periodically suffer renal failure and spend several days in a hospital getting re-hydrated on IVs. I can always get into my jeans when I get back home, though I may be a trifle wobbly.
To diet is to perform self-abnegation. “I’ve been on a diet for two weeks,” complained Totie Fields, “and all I’ve lost is two weeks.”
So I strive to follow the sage counsel of TV celebrity Miss Piggy: “Never eat more than you can lift.”

Hmmmm...............sort of reminds me of Chubbing!

;0)

bob

Hello HenryM.
This is a most pertinent post which does not seem to just apply to food and diet. The concept of ‘Personal diets being the scourge of true happiness’, I would rephrase into:
“Personal ‘wants’ are the scourge of 'contentment'.”
It is my contention that many modern men and women chase a concept of ‘happiness’, which is probably unachievable except in the briefest of moments. (Emotional high's closely followed by emotional lows.)

The commercial world has long-since figured out that they can make money out of making people discontented and therefore ‘unhappy’. They have found numerous ways to ‘sell’ people a false façade of happiness that can be purchased via their products.
I prefer the concept of ‘contentment’, where one values a long-term condition of not ‘wanting’ anything that is not necessary to sustain life.
This has the advantage of helping to identify more precisely what we ‘need’ rather than what we ‘want’.
It goes without saying that I have, in the past, contemplated this concept in verse, so I take your post as an invitation to share a few rhymes on this subject.

Best wishes
Bill

HAPPINESS.

Oh! - So elusive and short lived.
A precious and necessary gift.
Quite the opposite to sadness.
And all other forms of madness.

Happiness is very personal.
Tailored to the individual.
What works for you, may not for me.
An anathema it might be.

For me this thing is very rare.
Fleeting and fragile or not there.
An imaginary illusion.
Creates desire and confusion.

Just when you think it’s in your hand.
Through open fingers slides like sand.
It certainly exhilarates.
But easily evaporates.

It comes through love and romance too.
And so it’s felt by quite a few.
But there are others, I am one.
Who rarely laugh or have much fun.

Whilst happiness has bypassed me.
It’s busy setting other’s free.
Enabling them to live a life.
Free from trouble and free from strife.

When happiness is all I ask.
Sometimes I don a ‘happy’ mask.
But this little masquerade.
Does nothing to myself persuade.

It’s something of a paradox.
Which changes with the equinox.
With winter days so cold and black
I’m always glad when summer’s back.

                                               B. Withers 2008

HAPPINESS 2.

Happiness is ill-defined.
It all depends what’s in your mind.
For one it might be candle light.
Sensuousness as lips unite.

Minutest things, like good coffee.
Or smell of fresh baked bread maybe.
Things that are emotional.
Are uniquely notional.

Happiness is unreachable.
It may also be unteachable.
So where can I get that happy urge
From whence does happiness emerge.

It can be an anathema.
A paradox, a real dilemma.
For those who oh! so frequently.
Find it very hard to be.

Within themselves they feel a need.
On happiness they want to feed.
It becomes a true obsession.
Leading them towards depression.

Looking here and seeking there.
Hedonists are everywhere.
How many make it to their aim.
Who can their happiness sustain.

Many chase this fool’s errand
And never find the rainbow’s end.
Some will try to buy their way.
Others steal or cause affray.

Happiness I would suggest.
Is a useless, fruitless quest.
When you truly know what’s meant.
Your better off to be ‘content’.

                                             B. Withers 2008

HAPPINESS BOUGHT.

I want, I want, I want it now!
I aim to get it anyhow.
No matter what the cost may be.
I want happiness, I want glee.

This is the creed of modernity.
Resulting from greedy fraternity.
Pigs surrounding the ‘happy’ trough.
Knowing nothing of what they scoff.

As soon as someone’s seen to ‘need’
It will attract all those with greed.
With vultures circling on a kill.
The needy are in great peril.

For those who happiness pursue.
Are also they themselves pursued.
Happiness is big business.
Lots of money made in this.

Predators will hover round.
To swoop upon the ‘happy’ ground.
They would like us to be taught.
Like other things it can be bought.

There are many different ways.
That they will sell you ‘happy’ days.
They’ll sell ‘till all your money’s spent.
They thrive upon your discontent.

Within this money-making world.
This view of life becomes unfurled .
Happy’s measured by material means.
Not by other schemes or dreams.

Daft as it might seem you see.
They don’t want you to ‘be’ happy.
They want you feeling emptiness.
So you’ll be ‘seeking’ happiness.

They’ve arranged society.
So ‘happy’ is a paucity.
This is done deliberately.
So they can sell to you and me.

Believe me - you can be free. Don’t buy into it – 

                                             B. Withers 2008

CONTENTMENT.

Listen well, take careful heed.
And know what threatens human greed.
Greed is a basic sentiment.
That is threatened by contentment.

People cannot get enough.
Of all that materialistic stuff.
If I’m content I’ve no desire.
To accumulate and acquire.

They fill their pockets and their banks.
Without much thought of giving thanks.
No matter how much stuff they get.
They want much more and so they fret.

Discontentment eggs them on.
Avarice and greed for bullion.
Discontentment is the key.
Unlocks the door to tyranny.

Discontentment and frustration.
Is the hallmark of this nation.
With contentment comes a cure
There is no need for greed no more.

                                            B. Withers 2008
(in: Constructive Conversations inversed 2008)

Henry M-

I'm curious- where does the "Ostomy memories of..." come from?

Is it a professional type of personal distinction in your writing?

k

Hi K.  When I first began posting here, I hit on "Ostomy Memories" as a post title.  Then it was "Ostomy Memories Revisited" and "Ostomy Memories Again" and "Ostomy Memories Redux" and several more in the same vein.  When I ran out of ways to say that, I just started using "Ostomy Memories..." with the topic at hand.  The general subject of MEMORY has always fascinated me; that's what led me there in the first place.  At my age, memory makes up a significant percentage of one's thought.  As for you... REMEMBER to take care of yourself.  Stay well.