do the benefits really offset the cost?

It’s not enough to ask, ‘what’s the cost?’ like I did to finish up last week’s post.. lol a lot has happened since then and I’m a new person with new thoughts haha not really but let a topic marinade long enough and some different flavours start to come through and you appreciate the thing from a deeper level.

To give some context, we’ve been covering kai over the past couple weeks. Not just in its literal translation to food, but also in everything kai encompasses. From a literal sense of cultivating, gathering, hunting, storing, preparing and consuming food, to kai as a metaphor for anything physical in our lives, to kai as anything we might consume, including information and energy.

cut out one part of that process and you miss out on the mātauranga (knowledge) and other intertwined but often unacknowledged benefits that come with it.

For example, when you gather your own kai there’s a physical hit to performing the activities, there’s a level of intuition/emotional connection to the environment to be aware of ideal/unideal times to harvest, spiritual connection to the atua (god/elemental force/tupuna) of that domain, intellectual know-how to read weather patterns, cycles and monitor soil properties and so on. All of that is intrinsically packed into the activity — often without us even consciously thinking about it.

Our tupuna (ancestors) were innovators and constantly developed their tools and processes all the time. but I think one main distinction between their time and ours today, is the ritual or the spirituality that was intrinsic in everything they did. Their lives were ritual. From how they ate to what they ate and with whom they ate. You wouldn’t find a thread of superficial whakapapa in how they lived.

But like how my whakaaro (thoughts) have evolved in a week, our world has changed a bit since then.

When we innovate, or find ways to be more efficient and shorten a process — there’s a benefit, right? Whether that be increased time, money, energy, productivity or otherwise. there’s a benefit. a win of some sort. that’s how we get captured in the loop in the first place.. So we can agree on that basic terminology? Cool. but riddle me this, of the benefits we yield — do they outweigh the detriment they impose?

do we even know what we’re losing out on?

When buy takeaways for instance, we only partake in the consumption. No gathering, no prep work — besides making the order — and if it’s uber eats, we don’t even have to leave our location! Pretty sweet, huh? So there are huge benefits! In exchange for a fee, we’re afforded time, energy and resource to do other things. Besides the obvious financial cost (and I’d add health costs too if we’re talking classic takeaway foods lol @ me), what else are we exchanging for the convenience of fast-food?

Add to that, what are we replacing with our newfound ‘saved’ time, energy and freedom?! Worthwhile activities and kaupapa (projects/initiatives)? Really? Things that actually count towards the people we want to be, the kind of life we want to live, the kaupapa we’re part of?

I’m not about to tell you what meets the worthwhile criteria or not, I’ll leave that to you. But what I’ll sneak in before we wrap up is another question for you to consider and add to the mix;

are the few benefits good enough?

Do they really outweigh what we miss out on from the process? Remember, we’re thinking of kai as an expression, a metaphor as well as the literal food to nourish ourselves with.

If your answer is yes, awesome. Please get in touch because I’d love to learn more about how lol seriously. If the answer is no, or a ‘yes but…’ maybe start to think about how you can reclaim parts of the process and reintegrate it into your life, one step at a time.

And add some depth and deeper connection to that superficial, surface level whakapapa we’ve been conditioned to buy into.

Tēnā tātou,

Hana.