I believe that it is to teach us human beings, FREEDOM!
Many come to macrobiotics because of the diet, perhaps they are sick and they want to get well.
I came to macrobiotics because eating the food made me feel good!
But I then fell in love with the philosophy of it!
I was working at the Stillwater Inn, in Old Town-Orono, Maine in February, 1974, washing dishes, eating miso soup (and brown rice, etc), and reading Zen Macrobiotics, Healing Ourselves, and the East-West Journal!
With macrobiotics I gave up: all drugs, getting colds and the flu each year, and I stopped wearing glasses (up to then, I was nearsighted and suffered from astigmatism).
In the last thirty-two years I have not gotten infuenza, and I haven't needed eyeglasses to read or drive.
At age 13, I was five foot four, uncoordinated , a "D" student, and no one was interested in me (though I got beat up a lot because I had a funny last name).
At age 16, I was 6 foot ten, more coordinated and people started to ask me who I was playing basketball for (also, those bullies, when they saw me, they came up and apologized, begging for my forgiveness. [and no one paid any attention to my last name!]).
I devoted several years to basketball and getting good grades and focused on getting into college.
In my sophomore year, my father's sister took me and her kids to a Human Be-In in Elysian Fields (L.A.) and on another day, to a Love-In in Griffith Park.
Having been thoroughly exposed to the beatnik scene in Laurel Canyon where I had attended the 6th grade at Wonderland Avenue School in 1959, longings for that cool, hip, and now, unjudgmental acceptence, subtlety ignighted within me and I left the cafeteria table crowd at lunch time to hang out with the hippie wannabes on the lawn in the quad at William Howard Taft High School (in Woodland Hills).
These students were trying to wear their hair long, wearing buttons that said things like "Frodo lives!' and reading Herman Hesse and Lord of the Rings.
I found myself taking the school bus home with this crowd instead of riding my bike to and from school.
I started going to the house of one of the group's members in Topanga Canyon (a hour hitchhike from my house near Mulholland Drive and Topanga canyon Blvd.).
These guys obviously were high a lot though they never did any drugs in front of me.
I started hanging out at the Moonfire Inn and later the Topanga Corral.
A few weeks later I discovered the creek closer to the ocean that many of the hipsters went skinny dipping in.
I hung out with drug crazed hippie wannabes for two years before I finally indulged myself in the herb.
In the interim,I gravitated away from basketball, finally abandoning it when I graduated from high school.
While attending a "junior" college in the 'Valley", I sold The L.A.Free Press on Sunset Blvd. to tourists to support my new weed habit.
I became a leather craftsman, starting out making braided leather rings as I hitchhiked to San Francisco and then later to New York City and back home to Los Angeles.
I went to Isla Vista (I.V., the UCSB off-campus town in Goleta) every weekend and started making yellow latigo leather purses and handbags, in a leather shop, there.
Gradually I moved to I.V. making leather goods for two different shops and my own company until around the time that some people decided to burn down the Bank of America and then
I moved to San Francisco where I got involved in Scientology for a short time, before moving to different neighborhoods while developing a leather watchband business and selling underground newspapers on the street.
Finally moving to North Beach, I lived in several residential hotels there, making watchbands for headshops, custon luggage for North Beach Leather customers,worked for a couple of stints as a "barker" on broadway and a bouncer at various exclusive North Beach Leather parties and then started making jewelry and finally exotic, erotic pipes made of hardwoods, antler, and soapstone for smoking substances.
During that same time period I experiented with health foods (once healed myself overnight of the flu with hatcho miso soup) like freeshly squeezed orange juice, whole wheat, raw honey, Nancy's Acidolphulous Yogurt and "Deaf Smith" peanut butter.
Before I became a vegetarian, I used to eat Italian or Chinese food and walk around through all the bars in North Beach for several hours to work off the yang energy before going to my rooming house room to sit down and make something.
One afternoon I passed by a neighbor's room and saw them chopping up and eating a raw salad and I was invited to join them.
Almost immediately after eating their food, I was able to go to my room and work on my projects with plenty of clear focused energy.
So I started going by to eat with them and I was working at "The Condor" as a barker ("C'mon in and see Miss Carol Doda, star of screen, stage, and television. Live onstage! Naked! Naked! Naked!") but I did not have the excessive yang energy to shout at the tourists for 7 hours.
So I had to make a choice, either eat the yang food that I needed to be a barker or quit barking.
I chose to quit barking and my life became more interesting.
See me in the DVD, The Laughing Policeman on IMDB The Laughing Policeman DVD (10th Chapter, "Hardware Store", 00:36:26-00:36:28, 00:36:48-00:36:52, 00:38:40-00:38:45) as a big bearded hippie crafts vendor with multicolored knit cap, elaborately tooled shoulder bag, leather bell bottomed pants, jewelry and my box of pipes!
At that time I had ballooned up to 300 pounds andI was invited by my father's sister to visit them in their new location in North Carolina.
That Spring, 1973, I hitchhiked to the East Coast while fasting sometimes and eating mostly vegetarian food.
By the following February I was down to 200 pounds (when I became macrobiotic) which I maintained for almost 15 years.
In the last 41 years, many people have expected that because I was so tall that I should be playing basketball ("How tall are you, man?" "Seven feet." "Seven Feet?, Man you should be playing basketball! You could make a million dollars!" for so many years and now it's "Did you play basketball when you were younger? You could have made millions of dollars!" [I have mostly gray hair] "Oh no! When I grow up and finish high school play basketball in college, then after that, I can think about playing professional basketball!" ) people's jaws usually drop and they say no more.
Had making a lot of money playing basketball alway been on my mind, I suppose I could be a rich retired baketball player, now!
Because I wash street level windows for a living, many people come up to me and inquire about my height and almost all of them can't believe that I'm just a teenager! ;-)
Though I would find having millions of dollars useful, I am happy to live a simple life, wash windows and write on my computer to you all.
If by some magic, a lot of money comes my way, I will do so great things that will benefit many others with it.
Thank you, very much.
Be well.
Bruce Paine
