It's Complicated.

One of my favorite and most frequent "day-off" activities is to spend hours in the kitchen. Usually soon after rolling out of bed I'll walk into the kitchen, cook a lovely breakfast and then spend the next few hours either cooking more food or prepping the vegetables and other new groceries for easier use throughout the week.
Today I was peeling and cutting vegetables for this week's stock of vegetable stock (yes, that was on purpose) and was practicing mindfulness as I did so.
I realized how much peace and joy I find when I'm working with fresh foods and then wondered how it could make me so happy to end the life of something (I was feeling a bit bad for the celery).
That led me to wonder how much food I've consumed over my life time - how many vegetables and other resources were taken from their form and added to mine.

My thought process may have seemed strange - but really, the depth to which everything is interconnected is so mind-blowing.
Its odd to me that we think we're at all individual. Perplexing that we don't recognize how much we're influenced, one with and sustained by the things around us.
Our culture is so individualistic, as though the environments we're in are not major factors - this makes no sense. All life is interconnected.

I've been researching human reproduction systems and from the very beginning we're entirely dependent on other life for our own. This doesn't stop upon exit of the womb.