They play with their animals on occasion and worry over their health. When the time comes, they slit a throat, or wring a neck, or maybe pull out a gun. There's irony and paradox in the relationship, but there's no real contradiction of terms, and the gratitude they express at grace is not a posture. One and the same. Catholics eat Christ and hope to become more like him.
Carnivores eat their neighbors and bow to their inextricable part in nature.
I began searching for solutions, beginning with the conventional medical treadmill, and winding up on the fold-out table of a traditional Chinese doctor. This doctor listened as many do not, and he nodded and hmm ed and felt my pulse and studied my tongue. It seemed plausible. What I needed, he said, was to increase yang energy in my life. I needed energy, warmth, light.