Quote:
Originally Posted by ojai22
Hi Andy,
Here is an interview with a famous MB person that I think you will enjoy. He says it all....:
Ace Marketing Agency, LLC - Rochester, NY - Sales & Marketing Solutions for the 21st Century (http://www.acemarketingagency.com/in-the-spotlight.html - broken link)
And here's my own account of becoming MB:
2008 May « Ojai22: Lessons Learned (http://ojai22.wordpress.com/2008/05/ - broken link)
It's a way of life wherein you consume the fuel you need to keep your body running in top-notch order. Just like you would do with your car.
Hang in there.
ojai22
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The interview with Dirk Benedict isn't up any longer but I have a copy of it. It's worth the read:
What is Macrobiotics?
I have no idea. That’s a joke. Sort of. For nearly 50 years people have been and still are discussing, debating the meaning of "macrobiotics". Endless books have been written. No one who knows anything about macrobiotics, that is has wrestled with living macrobiotically, would ever ask this question. To "describe" macrobiotics in 25 words or 2,500 words is difficult for it deals with the problem of discussing Truthand Truth is buried in paradox and finally beyond words. Which is why Jesus, Lao Tzu and other enlightened souls always spoke in parables. But I’m not an enlightened soul and for the sake of this interview, let me give it a go:
Macrobiotics, literally meaning "large life", is a philosophy of life and the living of it as handed down through the ages via ancient Indian, Chinese and Japanese understanding of the laws of nature. It is out of its Japanese form that we have it in what is called macrobiotics. It teaches us to accept everything with great pleasure and gratitude. Accept misfortune as you would happiness; disease like health; poverty like prosperity. Understand that everything that happens to you is what you lack; everything that is antagonistic, is in fact complimentary. The study of macrobiotics is a continual, life-long process but can work what can only be called "miracles". Cancer can become opportunity for health; and great sorrow can lead to great joy. In truth all that has been written about macrobiotics comes from the study of the Seven Principles (and Twelve Theorems) as set down by George Ohsawa, the man who introduced macrobiotics to the Western world.
These Seven statements are in fact all one needs.
The Seven Principles are:
All things are differentiated apparatus of One Infinity.
Everythng changes.
All antagonisms are complementary.
There is nothing identical.
What has a front has a back.
The bigger the front, the bigger the back.
What has a beginning, has an end.
I’ll leave the Twelve Theorems for those curious enough to proceed further and who knows, maybe even read my book (Confessions of A Kamikaze Cowboy).
Food, the preparation, quality and quantity of it, is a major aspect of a macrobiotic approach to living one’s life. The goal is an achievement of balance, for indeed, "health" is merely that….harmony or balance. It is for this reason that the staple of a macrobiotic diet is grain, with animal food, beans, vegetables, fruit eaten in various degrees as side dish…depending on one’s environment (do you live in Alaska or Bora Bora?), one’s age, activity (do you dig ditches or sit behind a computer?) and naturally, ones gender.
Macrobiotic approach to well being is self-selective and not for everyone as it demands a person of a self-reliant nature and deep desire to master control of one’s destiny. In today’s world, I find there are few willing to attempt taking control of their health and well being with study of macrobiotic philosophy for they view themselves as "victims" and would rather look to others, be it the Government, or the AMA for solution to their problems. In effect becoming and forever remaining slaves to those they think can "cure" their misfortune.
2. Why is the study of macrobiotics still relevant 20 years after publication of my book?
Macrobiotics is timeless. All the wisdom that has been handed down through the ages is contained in macrobiotic philosophy. It will forever be "relevant" for one simple reason: It is Truth. Which is to say, it works. When the sun ceases to rise and set; when summer no longer leads to fall and youth to old age….then macrobiotics will no longer be relevant.
3. After 30 years of being macrobiotic what can I tell the readers about the benefits?
I began the study and application of macrobiotic philosophy in 1972. I began as a non-believer. It seemed impossible to me that something as simple as changing one’s diet could "cure" one of all the various illnesses that not only I, but society in general suffered from. The best minds in medical science had been struggling for decades to find a cure for cancer in all it’s forms, for heart disease, for diabetes, for arthritis, gout, and the various disease of the blood. My journey began, my interest was piqued by a simple pamphlet written by George Ohsawa that claimed that 10 days of eating brown rice would result in profound changes in my physical being. At the time I suffered from arthritis, which I’d had since I was 16, I had high blood pressure, head-aches, weight problems, skin problems….all the "normal" afflictions of America. I’d been taking medicine for many of my nagging problems. I was very young, "looked" healthy, had been a high school and college athlete of some renown, no one would have considered me ill or sick. I was in fact quite normal, for many of my peers suffered from the same maladies. The same chronic degenerative illnesses. One was told to simply take one’s medicine and live with it. Until, of course, enough money could be raised to find a "cure". And then the pamphlet by Ohsawa saying this approach was all insane and he had the solution. Well I didn’t believe him, (how could all the "experts" be wrong?) but I was thrilled that at last, here was something that I could do. By myself. I could easily prove him wrong. Be my own guinea pig. And so I began. And all hell broke lose. I quickly began to understand one of the priniciples "The bigger the front; the bigger the back." Big Changes. Not all of them pleasant. But I knew I was messing around with something very powerful and there was no turning back. I was way too curious and excited. Very excited when I awoke one morning, and for the first time in 10 years, had no arthritic pain as I climbed out of bed. No deep knee bends to ease that pain. This was a miracle. And so began my journey, which eventually led to diagnoses of cancer; further study of The Seven Principles; moments of supreme confidence and of self-doubt; and miracles.
I eventually shared this experience in Confessions of A Kamikaze Cowboy. And now 30 plus years have passed and I no longer doubt. The proof has been in the pudding, or more appropriately the proof has been in the brown rice; in the well being; in a life lived without all the degenerative diseases that rage through America and especially in those of my generation as we amble through our sixties. Throughout my journey I have been surrounded with people who considered my "diet" strange and silly and even foolish and many of these people came to have heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes… and oh yes…impotence. Impotence….the great dirty little secret of the American male that until recently was unmentionable. Am I the only man in his 60’s who isn’t taking drugs in order to have sex? From the number of commercials I suffer through with my teen-age boys while watching NBA or MLS, one would think that I was right when I wrote in my book that America is a Nation of "limp dicks".
So here I am…living free of all of these agonies and STILL there are those who doubt that it is a result of macrobiotic lifestyle. There is no difference between me and my impotent fellow Baby Boomers…except for that bowl of brown rice and cup of miso that graces my table daily.
At age 63, my pulse is 42 when I awake; 52 walking through my day. My blood pressure is 108/68. These numbers haven’t changed since I was 30. If modern medicine was really interested in "health" they would study a person like me. Why is this person aging differently than most Americans? But they don’t study the healthy minority because no one is interested. There is no money (for Big Medicine, Big Pharmaceutical, etc.) in being healthy and until there is the same amount of money in being healthy that there is in being sick…America will get what it wants and what America wants, is a pill to solve all that ails. (Viagra. Ciallis. Vioxx…pills, pills, pills). A magic bullet…surgery, chemo, radiation…something that can be done unto them while they lie unconscious on a table. The last thing they want is to have to become responsible; to go into the kitchen of their life and begin at the beginning; become responsible for the food they feed their body, their mind, their soul, (yes they are not three but ONE). They want rather for there to be National Health Care, where they can go, and I can pay, for their pills and magic bullets that will continue to mask the symptoms of their disease without ever treating the cause.
The real disease of America is not cancer or heart disease or lung cancer but rather a disease of the spirit. America has become a Nation of "victims". Our sickness is always someone else’s fault and responsibility. Soon there won’t be anyone left healthy enough to push the wheel chairs. Tyranny of the invalids.
It would be convenient if I were simply an aberration in my potent life lived off the hook of prescription drugs and free of chronic illness but I am not alone. There are thousands, perhaps millions, who are doing just as I am doing. I know. Over the 20 years my book, Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy, has been in print, hundreds have written me letters sharing their stories of recovery…from diabetes, cancer, obesity, impotence, arthritis. But alas, I have come to the conclusion it isn’t for the "masses". They would rather take their medicine, have their surgery, their chemotherapy, their radiation….much rather do this than go into the kitchen and start cooking their way to health. They only ask that I pay for all their medical "needs". After all, their cancer and heart disease is not their fault, not a matter of life choices, but rather a matter of "luck", or lack thereof. They tell me constantly, lecture me, that my youthful appearance and energy is not due to my diet but my lucky stars; my lucky genes. So they vote Obama or Hillary or for whichever politician will promise to pay for their bad luck. (With my money.) I resent deeply politicians telling me that I should pay for other peoples sickness. But what can you do? The Cancer Industry is Big Business. We should quit obsessing over Big Tobacco and worry more about Big Fast Food, Big Sugar, Big Fried Chicken. Big Health Care. You must realize that what is referred to as "health care" has nothing to do with "health"; with "curing" anybody…of anything. It is simply a system designed to treat symptoms and make money. And you can have it. I’m going to stick to my bowl of sautéed rice, beans and vegetables; sip my tea; puff my occasional cigar and let the viagra fall where it may. And anyway….living healthy is the best revenge.
4. What advice for someone interested in learning more about macrobiotics?
The old saying that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink is especially true when it comes to macrobiotics. You can lead a person to the rice bowl but you can’t make him eat. Over the decades I have found it to be absolutely true that the more you try to "help" someone incorporate macrobiotics into their life, they less apt they are to do it. I used to go and cook for the sick and dying when they said they were "interested" in trying macrobiotic diet. I never worked. It is necessary for you to do it yourself. YOU MUST LEARN TO COOK YOUR OWN FOOD (MEDICINE). There are now hundreds of wonderful books about macrobiotics. Anyone with an ounce of curiosity can find endless literature…from memoirs of recovered health to cookbooks….with the click of a mouse. The only thing stopping one from changing one’s well being via study and application of macrobiotics is lack of imagination, curiosity and sheer laziness. Which is why I say, "We always get what we deserve". And as Ohsawa said, what "happens to us is what we lack". Cancer is simply physical manifestation of spiritual disease. Crimes against Mother Nature. Against human nature. Reflection of excess. Recovery can be anyone’s but it is always up to them.
I still offer advice and assistance to those wishing to be fellow travelers, but I always tell them, "Start without me."
5. While filming and traveling how do I maintain macrobiotic principals.?
It used to be that eating a diet based on grain and vegetables required a deal of planning and a lot of doing without. This is no longer true. Thee are food stores in virtually every city in America where one can buy all the different grains, vegetables, miso, seaweed, tofu and an endless variety of foodstuffs for those who don’t feast on Big Macs and Pizza Hut. My entire film and TV career I have been macrobiotic. Many years ago I created what I call "The Kamikaze Cowboy Kitchen". Which was a Haliburton camera case customized to hold 2 different grains, beans, cutting board, hot plate, small wok, and several cooking pots. I took this with me everywhere. From England to New Zealand to Italy and throughout America. I would then buy local vegetables and voila could prepare fried rice, boiled rice, make miso soup, a bean soup….all in my hotel/motel room.
While doing The A Team and Battlestar Galactica, filming took place in Los Angeles so I would eat breakfast at home, take my lunch and then be home for dinner. While doing The A Team, the hours were grueling. 14 to 16 hours a day. We had one of the best caterers in the business and it drove him wild that he never saw me eat lunch. I finally told him that I brought my own; that I liked brown rice, etc, and he said…"show me how to make it and I’ll cook it for you." (Wish women would say this to me.) So I showed him how to do a simple sauteei and he so I started eating it every lunch. Our cast and crew numbered nearly 100 people so there were a lot of folks curious to know what in the hell I was eating…."pile of brown stuff". Eventually some of them asked for a taste. It wasn’t long before the caterer was making enough for everyone to have and it became a staple of his while he cooked for The A Team. Must have been dozens of guys who started eating brown rice as result of this. That’s the real way you "teach macrobiotics". Show them how damn tasty the food is.
But the real answer to your question is "I just do it." I have never thought of myself as part of the mainstream. Never listened to the experts. I have always followed my OWN instinct, my OWN judgment, my OWN dream. Have always been on my OWN.
Maintaining one’s principals, be they macrobiotic or otherwise, is a matter of judgment. Macrobiotics gives one a Universal Compass with which to make our judgments. I do realize, of course, that in today’s America being "judgmental" is considered mean and arrogant. Kids today are taught to be non-judgmental, taught to live in a world of "gray"; macrobiotics teaches that the world is all about judgment, that life is all about judgement (making choices) and that the world is black and white (yin and yang).
Is it any wonder youth today have trouble saying "no" to meth or casual sex or excess alcohol? They watch their parents pop pills for arthritis, for headaches, for blood pressure, for ulcers, for SEX. Their schools teach them that there is no "right way" or "wrong way" but simply some vague middle ground where no one is offended, no one is hurt, no one has their self esteem damaged. This kind of environment makes it difficult for a child, like my children, to "maintain macrobiotic principals". My children, by eating "differently", were thought to be "judging" what other children ate. After spending the last 15 years raising children and dealing with Public Education, it doesn’t surprise me that so few people are capable of understanding or following macrobiotic philosophy.
Macrobiotics requires the ability to think; to be an individual. Public Education teaches group-think, individual achievement is down-played. The most difficult aspect of following macrobiotic principals in today’s world has nothing to do with food….but everything to do with dealing with political correctness and the massive brain-washing done to American society by mass media, public schools, colleges, big corporations. It is very difficult to be an individual. We live in a time when simply having an opinion is considered a kind of arrogance, aggression. Having an opinion somehow means you think you are "right". (And "they" are wrong.)
Of course there IS such a thing as a right and a wrong choice. In this material world.
In the spiritual world, of course, there isn’t because it doesn’t really matter. Choosing to do crack cocaine for 10 years and die at 40 or chew brown rice and live ‘til 100…doesn’t really matter. (Just don’t come crying to me.) The bigger the front (fun/energy); the bigger the back (pain/exhaustion). (We all know the "front", wait until the "back" of taking viagra or cialis starts to manifest itself. There won’t be enough lawyers to handle the liturgy.)
6. How can national and regional retailers build awareness and drive sales of macrobiotic products?
I must say that "macrobiotic diet" has nothing to do with special products. The native Inuits were "macrobiotic" and ate mainly animal protein. You can be macrobiotic and live in the jungles of Africa without any miso or brown rice within 1,000 miles. The notion that one needs to eat exotic Japanese food to be "macrobiotic" is nonsense. Having said this….I know what you are asking. Can miso, seaweed, brown rice and other grains, tofu and the endless products made from soybean….can all of these and many more be marketed for the general population? I doubt it. For all of the reasons mentioned in the answers to your previous questions.
One has to want to make change, and few people do. On the other hand, the availability and variety of macrobiotic products is growing. I know this from my 30 years of traveling America. I just bought a bag of organic brown short grain rice. $50. (Six months ago it was $36. Gas prices.) I buy about four 50 pound bags of rice a year.
The beauty of eating traditional macrobiotic fare, is that it is simple and inexpensive. The real money is in supplements or healthy "junk food"….all snacks and candy bars and drinks that are just like mainstream junk food but…..different.
I have often thought of how to "market" macrobiotic eating. I keep coming back to showing an "example" (spokeperson or persons) of how good the food is for you. Show them how delicious the food is. Years ago I was trying to start a "fast food" restaraunt called "Kamikaze Cowboy Kitchen". The intention was to start a chain of them. Serving healthy food in recognizable "fast food" style and form. I still think it would work. Like a McDonalds but with different kinds of non-animal burgers; soy milk "milk shakes", etc.
You have to make the food fast, fun and sexy. And propagandize how good it is for you.
The driving force behind the rapidly growing "health industry" is the simple fact that more and more people are realizing that what they are eating is killing them. And those they love. So they are looking for alternatives. If I were Warren Buffet or Bill Gates, I would start a marketing campaign aimed at all the millions of people who know, from experience, that there has to be a better way, not only of eating but of treating illness.
When women deserted the kitchens of America with the advent of feminist movement; it wrecked havoc, not only on the emotional well being of the family unit, but even more so on the physical health. No one was cooking. Now Big Food cooks for the children (and parents) of America. We eat factory food. And it’s killing us. If America is ever really going to reverse the horrible reality of degenerative illnesses in this country….somebody is going to have to stay home and start cooking. (As I did for my children.) As I type this, 80% of America is over-weight. And yet most Americans think the number one threat to their health is "smoking". (Or Global Warming.)
I have always kind of enjoyed the fact that grains, beans and vegetables are virtually profit proof. It is hard to "hype" and over charge for a bag of carrots or black beans.
Do I have plans to write any new books or screenplays?
I believe my true calling was to be a writer. (Acting just a 30 year tangent?) I got divorced in 1995 and gained custody of my two young boys. We moved to my little log cabin in Montana and for the past 13 years I have been completely engrossed, immersed, challenged, overwhelmed, overjoyed and exhausted being a Single Dad. During that time I have done some acting and writing and even wrote/directed my own film, CAHOOTS, starring Keith Carradine and David Keith. But the truth is, writing comes from the same emotional, psychological (spiritual?) place as does raising my boys. Writing, for me, requires serenity. A lot of time staring out the window in between sentences, words, deletes. I want to write one more memoir about my experience as a single parent in the woods of Montana cooking on a wood cook stove. We’ll see. I’ve written two. But the world works in "3’s". Writing a book is one thing, getting it published, I’ve discovered, is quite another. I do have the fortitude for writing another book but not sure I have the endurance for the publishing battle.
I will definitely write some more screenplays. I find them easier than a book and requiring less time and depth of concentration. What I really have a passion for is writing for the stage. I became as a stage actor, it was my dream and the theatre is still my passion. I have written three plays and several have come very close to being produced. All of my plays are very politically incorrect. I’ll leave it at that. It is difficult getting a play (book screenplay) past the censorship of the Politically Correct Police.
My favorite character during my acting career?
Hamlet. Because I have had a similar life-experience and understand him.
When I was in college we studied Hamlet and I was in complete disagreement with the various standard interpretations of the part and play. Hamalet was NOT melancholy nor indecisive nor (the most ridiculous) in love with his mother….this from Laurence Olivier! I could write a book about Hamlet and how and why I feel as I do.
I did, finally, get to play him. In New York in 1987. My Hamlet was rash and passionate and funny and very, very much in the Errol Flynn mold. Critics were dumbfounded. But the script backs up all of my "choices" in the playing of him. I’d like to teach a class on Hamlet. In film my favorite part was in a film called Body Slam. Directed by Hal Needham. A farce. Full of physical humor and zany as hell. I had a great time making it. Unfortunately the film was never released due to law suits filed twixt producers and studios and I don’t know whom. It is available on DVD. Every now an then I’ll be walking down the street and someone will see me and yell: "Hey, Harry Smilac!" Which was the name of the character I played and the kind of guy you never forget.
In Television my favorite part was in a CBS movie called Trenchcoat in Paradise. Best written part I ever had. Again a comedy, but in the film noir tradition. If there was a TV God…it would have been made into a TV series. Bruce Dern played the villain. My favorite experience was doing The A Team. I loved all of the guys I worked with, George, Dwight, "T". Playing "Faceman" was a joy. It lasted 4 years. Four years of laughter. The kind of part I most enjoy doing….comedic con-man. Oh yes, and ladies man. I was always amazed I got paid to have so much fun.
The meaning of life?
You have to be kidding. Okay, I’ll take a stab:
There is a divine moment in our lives when we become One.
It is called pro-creation and it is reborn continually
and forever in the future we call children.
They are our destiny and we are theirs.
The extent to which we fail as parents….
We fail as God’s children.
Always put the meaning of life in italics. Actually, I cheated. I wrote this for the dedication of the re-issue of my book, Kamikaze Cowboy. I don’t say that a life lived without children doesn’t count but I have said:
"A life without children is like a camera without film." I don’t believe on our death bed we wish we’d done one more TV series or played more golf or caught more fish; but we might wish we had spent more time with our children. I won’t have the regret.
What’s next for Dirk Benedict?
This fall I am accompanying my 18 year old son Roland on a trip to Europe. He is going to have a go at playing professional soccer (football over there). I will probably stay with him for 9 months to a year. Then…..
I’m going to disappear.
END OF ARTICLE.
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Inspirational !!
