Dear Jacque, who will feed the worms?

Face-to-face with a literature review. Dear Derrida, nice to meet you, Cusmano. I hate to tell you that I have to disagree. That's a bit rude of me. And it's not that I disagree. It's that you make me feel uncomfortable with your radical preachings, your penchant for rules. What's worse is that you are right. Who says vegetarians and vegans are better than animal eaters and flesh consumers? It is still consumption. Too many of one plant can kill the land, just to please our liking. Not to mention veggies' pesticides, transport and packaging. To fill our empty growling stomachs, our belly linings. A small neverending sacrifice just for the pleasure of a moment and the satisfaction of a few hours. Aahh I am full - as I happily remove from existence Poma (2023) something that is not for my taking. Consumption, no matter what kind is still violence. Oh Derrida, you have caused a fracture in me. Dear Derrida, can I call you Jacque? Oh, Jacque, you have caused me to sit in silence watching my work crumble. Just a moment ago I thought that I was better than everyone else. I could be saved for I believed that I am more just, more ethical. Being a vegetarian, sparing the flesh and blood of animals. Is it ignorant of me to assume that plants want to die, accept the end of their life, enjoy being a digested sacrifice? Is it ignorant for me to think that anything is happy about turning to shit? My shit. I wouldn't be happy about it. And I have been a plant. And I have been pulled by my hair, ripped out of the ground. Would you laugh if I told you it was a vegan who assumed that his pleasure would come without a cost? I am Piper, not Pepper. He must have been confused when he exploited my time and left my feelings consumed. So Jacque, should we just let ourselves die and die out? Should we interrupt the human cycle of violence and consumption? I've already tried dying Jacque. I did not like it. Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar (2006) suggests eating ourselves. Or rather, eat our mothers as we did as babies. Oh, Jacque, don't flinch, don't be disgusted. Everyone's first meal was their mother. And not just her milk. Maybe to level out the playing field we can eat our father and quench our thirst with our mother. Over and over and over. But I can't, Jacque. I don't have a mother. You judge me for eating others, you judge me for not digging up my dead mother, Jacque I have no answer for you. Yes, I am cruel, the first thing I did with my life was steal my mother's blood sweat and cells. And now that I am older I take all sorts of lives to keep me alive and well. I take that of plants and that of dairy cows and their thirsty calves. I take the lives of the tomato field pickers, of the animal milkers. Of their wives and their daughters when the underpaid immigrant dies under the relentless climate change sun. I take the lives of children that make my shoes, I take their future and their chance to go to school. I claim a piece in genocide when I choose to buy or use bloody goods and tools. I have no fucking rules, Jacque. I don't want to be ruthless, but I am. I don't know what to do. Oh, Jacque, I hate that you are right about me about you and about climate change and the end of the world too. You see, Jacque, that you must multiply my corrosive existence by 8 billion times. We take and take and take and consume. To keep getting stronger, to grow younger and taller. We take without giving Jacque. And that is how we can decode the imminent collapse of our world. Our elderly keep getting older, at the price of plastic packing, pig farming, Barbie's pink paint shortage, new goddamn throwaway posters. I'm sick Jacque, no matter what I do. It's not good enough, I keep adhering perfectly to your predicted rules. No matter how much I try. And you know what's worse? I was sitting in Kelvingrove Park, sitting on the hill thinking about you. And you know what's worse, Jacque, is that you are not even here. You have been dead for many years. How does it feel to be dead Jacque, to be a human that just gives and doesn't take? It must be peaceful to know you are doing no harm, not needing forks or knives or even arms to eat or eat with. Yet I am here trying to answer the world and you stormed onto my page, taking no one hostage, interrupting my day. It's fine, I'll be okay. In a few minutes, I'll get up and go home. I'm hungry and tired, my tofu scramble awaits. I believe you, Derrida, I see you Derrida and you are right until you are not. It's not with your words but with your life, Jacque, that you have shown me how we give back. If our governments left us time to think we would thank the farmers for the food they make, not need as many garments and eat so many steaks. We would have energy to protest, slow down our pace to move with the slowest. With whoever needs it. Yes, Jacque, I hate to say it aloud, but you are right, we need to consume. And it is violent and horrid and crude. But that's life's cycle it's how the world will resume working. Oh dear Jacque we need to change the world and live slower. We need to embrace that this is how it needs to go, it's written in our biological fate: we are alive and we will die. As humans, as a generational brotherhood of death, it’s our duty to honourably serve as food for worms. With a lot of admiration, dear Derrida Cusmano.