Living From Love

Tom Osher

Tom Osher aka Mofwoofoo is Chambalabamba's founder and visionary.

What is it to live from love, as opposed to ego? How do you really do that? I have been thinking about that because I am at the stage in my life where I want to give all I can to help create the world that we all have been missing. I am a long-time radical-anarchist activist. And I have a few bold and ambitious strategies that are in the process of manifesting. So, I am thinking, reading, and learning many things every day. My strategies involve what is «outside», the interior is equally important, but I can only focus on so much.
But what has occurred to me, is that so much of human behaviour is «animalistic». After all, we are animals, but we are different, aren’t we? One big distinction is that we have the possibility to be «ethical», while all the other animals don’t seem to have this choice. So much religion, philosophy, and spirituality have reflected on this, ethical behaviours. The 10 commandments are a good example and the teachings of Jesus, the precepts of Buddhism, etc., etc.
Nevertheless, much of human behaviour is animalistic, killing for food, killing for other reasons, violence, sexual depredation, etc. These are not humane. Our world suffers from this lack of humaneness big-time, the cut-throat competition that characterizes our economic system. One man’s gain is another man’s loss. The impositions we place on each other and that are placed on us. It is not humane to impose anything on anyone ever except perhaps to prevent someone from harming another. Freedom is the birth right of all living creatures. It is inherent.
I am a vegetarian who sometimes will eat fish or chicken. Sometimes, I think that a chicken must give up its life for the sake of my having one meal. I can justify it by noticing how cruel chickens seem to be in the way they treat one another, with their pecking order, and they do peck the ones at the bottom of the order. But am I not imposing my human values on chickens to justify eating them? As I have already mentioned, animals aren’t able to choose to be ethical. It hardly seems fair. If I was a cannibal, could I justify eating another human, taking away their life for the sake of one or more meals? The scale is way out of balance. If we could affect the coming reset, if we somehow had the power to make it go in the direction of a just
and regenerative world*, would it be worth giving up the pleasure of eating fish and chicken? Obviously!!
I live in an eco-community (chambalabamba.org) where it’s important to walk one’s talk. Hypocrisy stands out and is contrary to our pillar of personal integrity. We have etilapia in our swimming pond (my idea) and are in the process of building a trout pond. We want to have as much food on hand as possible, if things get rough. I love fish and the omega 3 that science suspects are healthy and that is necessary to have. Animal sources of omega-3s are fish and grass-fed animals. However, vegan-friendly supplements containing EPA and DHA from algae are available. I woke up this morning thinking of the relationship of animals and plants and how it
seems that plants which are immobile are here to serve all animal life including insects. They endlessly provide us with so much. It’s such a huge gift without which animals could not live. It seems to be a very loving gift. And they are medicinal as well. Isn’t that fantastic! And beautiful! Plants should never be taken for granted, they should be adored and venerated. But they are constantly desecrated with pollution and pesticides. All the crimes of humanity, when we act inhumanely are taking us to extinction, perhaps, it is our just desserts for ignoring the grace that we have been given and living like the rest of the animals, that is, without ethics.
Extinction could be the biblical judgement that awaits us all for not living up to our human potential.
Can we «wake up» now, at the last possible moment and get a reprieve?
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