The more dysfunctional one's bodily functions are, the more apparent the effects of a given diet, which is one form of feedback that can make a little more functional one's body in turn. One does this by gauging the myriad effects a given type of food encourages, which tend to be a little more distinct and vivid in an already weakened body, which has become hypersensitive to the numerous insults threatening its compromised integrity. Every bit of bad food can set in motion a wave of tiny rebellions in the form of stomach upset, joint and muscle pain, brain fog and irritability and depression, and so on, such as in the case of an immune disorder in which anything inflammatory or irritating activates a more generalized inflammation response. One tends toward the foods that are usually more nutritious and readily digestible and favorable to the metabolism anyway, as these are less likely to piss off one of those bodily components that is set in irritable and unhappy relation to the rest of the compromised whole.
In the same way, I try to stick to a curated diet of nutritious intellectual works in the form of "meat and potatoes" books and analyses, as well as a wide and colorful range of veggies and spices in the form of blogs and newsletters, news analyses, podcasts, creative audio and visual works, and so on. One can judge the effects of these things not long after their consumption: were they produced by people concerned with nutrition, or the circulation and distribution of elemental facts and truths needed to properly reproduce one's vessels of navigation in a given environment and climate? Or were they produced in order to facilitate as rapid and far-reaching expansion as possible, regardless of substance?
Does a given work attempt to reconcile as much as possible one's position in the real at a certain time and space? Does it accord with the other works in its relation, which though in their wide diversity all seek accordance as much as humanly possible with observable reality and experience? Or is it an empty vessel meant to excite and instrumentalize various pleasures and displeasures to achieve a short term end, after which it evaporates?
All of the wonderful writers and artists I have the privilege of reading and seeing and hearing from can be trusted to deliver: I can read or see or hear a given nutritious work and be filled with luminous thoughts and passions which multiply and build upon each other, and in such an ecstatic state I can create something of my own which I can be proud of, edifying that base of confidence and competence drawn from to judge and anticipate and navigate the world.
On the other hand, junk food and junk works have distinct effects of their own. A Reese's peanut butter cup has just about the same effect for me as reading some piece coming out of the "mainstream media": it might be quite tasty and maybe even thrilling for a couple of precious seconds, and then for the next half an hour or so I feel quite bad and can barely think. Do that again and again and choose that for your regular foundation and then you're really in trouble.
Junk works are not meant to cohere - other than the common intention to excite your senses for a second or two in order to manipulate you in a certain direction - or even to accord with reality beyond a surface resemblance, and so the next one might contradict the previous, and you sit there, your mind empty, or worse, gunked up, unable to understand the world you move in, which repeated at a great enough sustain, can even be fatal.
This is not to deprecate junk wholesale; the case can be made for consciously ingesting a bit of junk here and there to rest and shut down. To each their own.
Then you have something like a typical article from the New York Times, which is made to resemble something nutritious, and may very well be loaded with a few vitamins and nutrients to boot, but which is covertly sprayed down with some sneaky pesticide to support its mass production and wide distribution. One can get by on articles such as these if taken sparingly, or taken with a bit of intellectual and emotional distance, knowing what it really is underneath, as oftentimes this is all the information in a certain context one can get. And I could go on.
And all of this is related to each other and builds on each other. For me, a good diet keeps me feeling good, and I have the motivation and the strength to procure and consume the really good nutritious intellectual stuff, and then feel even better, and am further motivated through feedback to keep eating good nutritious food and so on. And it is good to have sources of strength like this to draw upon, because they're always trying to push the crap on you, right up to your face, waving it there, trying to bury your nose in it even.
