I'm a level 5 vegan.

My journey to the pinnacle of ethical and healthful (don't you dare misuse "healthy" around me, dear God) eating started at the tender age of trimester one. There in the womb, I vividly recall drinking society's collective milkshake out of Mother's umbilical cord. The heavens had granted me the perfect harmony of nutrition, allowing me to exist in this serene state free of health woes for 10 and a half months.

Even during my early childhood I was aware, and I ate well then. I vaguely remember at two months old eying the Gerber bottles in an attempt to convince my Mom to pick the one devoid of high fructose corn syrup. Of course then, I could only pout and cry. As a modern day "hippie," some may suggest I haven't changed since. Oh, but my carnivorous friends, believe you me, hardline, militant veganism is far cry from pouting and sobbing.

When I went from self-aware to enlightened at about 24 months, I began telling my beatnik Father I didn't want his bacon. How could I? My only childhood friend was our pet pig, "Banana." Of course, raised on a factory farm, he'd chase me around the filthy pig pen and beat me with a discarded cow leg until I was bloody and complacent. After a few violent altercations, I learned to eat and "enjoy" the scrumptious insides of the best bred cows and pigs.

Shortly after puberty, I mastered a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsi despite being underage. Not long later, my dad's tyranny fled and his pelvic bone was left broken in three spots. From then on, he didn't look me in the eye during dinner. I contently switched to a vegetarian diet. The hardest part wasn't finding protein, rather the $20 a day addiction to marshmallows I had to let go. One Christmas Eve, I slit my wrists in a tub full of water upon discovering the 5lb. bags of gummy bears I bought contained gelatin from boiled horse bones. Luckily, Mother was there.

The hospital stay was awakening and arduous, yet after the "gummy bear incident," I vowed a lifestyle of veganism and excessive label-reading. No longer would I be fooled by the food industry.

At age 42, it's simple to see vegetarianism and meat-eating are no different. Both promote the imprisonment, rape, and killing of livestock. To call vegetarianism activism is like Smokey the Bear getting on the tele and stating, "Molestation: Hey, at least it's not murder!" Female cows live caged and reproduce with the help of a human hand inserted into their anus. If this isn't unnatural enough, the humans inseminating them provide no gentle caresses, no Barry White, no cuddle afterward and certainly no cigarette.

Even level 1 veganism is a pansy endeavor like non-violent resistance. It's a fatalistic live and let live approach. Level 2 is when you transcend mere values by extreme condescension towards carnivores. Things don't get too fun until level 3, when you're allowed per the Vegan Bible to viciously pound anyone holding a brown bag of B.K. It also entails the introduction to raw foodism. Level 4 is achieved by putting activism on overdrive, denouncing most edible consumer products, and the recognition that the only harmony the human has is in its infliction of pain and suffering upon nature and the animal kingdom.


Level 5 veganism

It's said at this stage we don't eat anything that casts a shadow. Ideally, that would be the case. My diet consists of uncooked foods and compassion. Again, I'm no hippie, I'm a man who walks around barefoot because he's considerate enough to figure that grass may feel pain when you step on it. As a sane, on-the-level individual, I wouldn't enjoy being boiled, so why would I put water through the same test of searing heat? Water is the essence of life, and I won't scorch that life to enjoy a package of Top Ramen.

Aside from a diet of mostly liquid, I recruit level 4s with an end justifies the means mentality to work and destroy conglomerate corporations from within. I do not align myself or speak with anyone below a level 3. I mean, what's the point of going to Best Buy and buying an iPod if you're going to support a meat-eating cashier? Would you buy Pocky from a Nazi? That's basically what carnivores are. Level 5 veganism's pioneering force is awakening the reality of influence. Like the domino effect, our choices leave fingerprints on everything.

It hit me one night as I refused to drive in my friend's $50,000 Acura due to its leather interior. After a 7-mile walk uphill in the snow, I decided to drink soy cocoa and relax before sleep. It is then that I was ogling one of my favorite pornographers in Depraved Derriere Destruction Volume 14. There, as she sat being pleasured on a large leather loveseat, an epiphany dawned: cruelty cannot be supported in any form. It was a revolting sight. I decided then and there, that, after a quick climax, I would cement my intolerance for beliefs differing of mine.

That's when I turned level 5 at age 30. Years have gone by and I've gone harderline than ever before. The torch is already being passed to my offspring. Currently, a steady diet of soy milk and leaves is giving my half-Latino, half-African baby Coltrane a stunning yellow complexion. My baby's the envy of the organic food market, not even Mrs. Wendel's adopted West Indian boy Moleskine can compete. You call it abuse and malnutrition, I call it getting back at the system.

What's important to pass on here is the ideology. Intolerance is a capable tool for understanding people and founding societies. Compassion should be extended to only those sentient beings that appear more simple and weak than us, and our complex counterparts can be judged on a surface level before socially discarded. Beliefs should be free from challenge by others because, come on, man.

Dedicated to Jessica. Don't be mad.