I was invited last week to be part of a preview of the film Food, Inc. (in theaters on June 12th), followed by a panel discussion with San Francisco Bay Area organizations such as Food and Water Watch, Pesticide Action Network North America, and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy – amazing organizations that have done fantastic work over the last years to change awareness and to make this world a better place.

Food, Inc. is an important movie for anyone who cares about food. It features interviews with Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), and reports on some of the darkest areas of cruelty in the production of the food that we eat.

The movie is extremely powerful, so much so that half way through the film I found myself torn between appreciating the intention and rejecting it for the cruelty it shows.

I was sitting in the theater knowing that I would be part of the panel discussion right after the film, and I had to make a choice – either to let this movie not fully affect me so that I can be the role of executive director, or let myself feel what I felt and not really knowing if I could give a great presentation afterwards.

I was struggling with that conversation in my body between heart and mind, trying to answer the question: How can I choose numbness or ignorance right now, when I am sad about the perceived numbness of the slaughterhouse workers in the movie that I am watching?

Finally, I chose to fully feel the movie.

Right after the film had ended I sat down to be part of the panel, yet I knew I couldn’t just launch into my regular talk. My heart was beating and the scenes of the movie were still very much in my head, and so I expressed on the panel that I am struggling with the message of the movie, with the display of cruelty and violence, and I was wondering if anything good could come out of it.

I said that I know that education is important but also that my inspiration comes from the work of Marin Organic – amazing farmers, stories from the land, progressive ideas and first and foremost, hope and beauty – and that I don’t know how we could possibly hold both – the dichotomy and necessity of displaying cruelty in the pursuit of creating beauty and positive change?

Isn’t the motivation out of watching cruelty always anger, or fear? Can there ever be anything beautiful come out of anger or fear or will that motivation follow through the entire creation, like a silk threat, and destroy the creation at the end because of its inherent weakness?

And who are we to display the organic movement as the solution and the food industry as the evil “other”, when it is all about engagement and integration and changing things by becoming a part of it, because, truly, we are already a part of it?

And so I went on and on.

The film and my internal conversation stayed with me the entire week.

I realized last night – while all these thoughts of course are valid – that my motivation that evening came at least in part from fear myself – the fear that if we don’t all love more, we will fail as a movement.

And by following my fear, completely without knowing, in debating my thoughts with the audience and building a space as in “me and the other” between me and my fellow panelists, I, myself created the second greatest force that stands in the way of transformation and positive change – which is “separation”.

Everything I so strongly stood against that night, the separation, the being motivated by fear, the “me and the other”, in that moment, I had become myself.

What an incredible lesson.

I finally got the full meaning of Gandhigi’s “Be the change that you want to see in the world”. I believe what he is actually saying is not to be different – and then feel right about it – but actually, simply, be more loving.

Food, Inc. – in theaters on June 12th. Difficult to watch, but perhaps important to watch it anyway. You decide.

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