Feeding Your Eyes and Offending Your Mind

by

Obododimma Oha

Many experts would agree that feeding has a psychology. One has to enjoy one's meal. Taking a meal is not the time to overlook the food or eat absent-mindedly. I know that many people are now attached to phones, TV shows, films, etc. They like feeding their eyes and by so doing feed their minds. But this kind of feeding of the mind can conflict with and offend feeding the body,  so that the food we ingest is mere excess luggage. The body cannot be insulted or bribed when the mind is somewhere else. This essay  is simply saying that both are good but have to be done appropriately and in a non-conflicting way.

Phones and films are great stressors and means of killing time. The local Igbo who describe films as "elelebe ejeghị ọrụ" (That which somebody watches and fails to go to work) are very right. Such activities can consume our time if we are attached to them.That means that we should use them wisely. Like every habit, they try to control us. We should not let that happen. Is it a phone call when one is in the middle of something? NO; let it ring out. Is it God calling you? Later you can check and see the "missed Call" and return the call. Same for the films.Don't let the attachment to "ezemmụọ syndrome" lead you to forget that you are putting your android phone inside the soup and not some salt.

But this is about feeding and insulting or offending the mind. When you need to watch your favourite programme on TV is not the time to pretend to attend to your stomach. That is also not the time for "ezemmụọ." Your stomach is asking for a lot of care; is it? Your stomach has to respect modern multi-tasking; is it? Please, feed while you feed and watch pictures while you watch.

Watching pictures would help you to laugh, to smile, to chuckle, to unburden, to take life easy, etc. But it would also make you feed on the raw emotions of others, internalize such, and temporarily step out of yourself to be somebody else or to sympathize with X and Y and be a partisan politician. When you are at table, that is not the time to play all that politics.

It could even be worse if eating and watching pictures are jointly done just before turning in for the night. So, someone has to go to bed with all those emotions burdening one's mind, coupled with the sad experience of COVID and cattle militia? It is highly possible that the fellow would have bad dreams or start shouting while asleep and kicking the next sleeper like football. Even the supper that is taken absent-mindedly may be digested absent-mindedly by the body, leading to indigestion. But the body and the mind need to work together on the food and happily, too. Absent-mindedly ingested, NO.

There was a lady supervior of cookery that I was lucky to have come across in Lagos sometime ago. She would stand to see you served and would then say, "Enjoy your food." That became her signature greeting equivalent to "Bon appetit." I am beginning to realize how right she was. Enjoy your food and do not be distracted. Enjoy our creativity that comes as this food. Enjoy the beauty of this food and the beauty served as this food. Just enjoy.

And she would be beaming with smiles, as if one has to eat her face first, then, eat the food.
Am I beginning to sound like a motivational speaker? An expert in cookery? NO. None of these. Just an idiotic fellow telling you also to enjoy your food. Telling you on behalf of that lady beaming with smiles somewhere. I wished the warmth of her smile and her good wish would follow me to every table.

Didn't I say that watching pictures was also feeding of the mind? Indeed, what you see is what is fed to the mind , what is thought about. So, at other times, be careful with what you feed to the mind. I don't blame those children who easily lose interest in "crazy" adult programmes and prefer to play with their toys. Those indigestible narratives that adults use in complicating their lives. Those painful but "stupid" quarrels. Abeg, I won't play with you again.

Well, you have got it. When you watch your disturbing pictures is not when to pretend to be eating and enjoying your food. Your food is your life. Enjoy your life. If you want to disturb that life later with sad pictures, you can do so.

Watching a film or TV while eating is not always good for your mind and body that receives the food. Eating has a psychology. Those in the film or TV won't know that you are eating if they say or do something that would make you lose appetite. Respect your table today.