Tony Matthews is the author of this awesome book for introverts: „Invisible - The Essential Guide for Aliens Stranded on Earth”.
An interview with the author Tony Matthews:
I understand that you used a rather strange method to
write this book. Can you tell us about that and why the book was written?
I
wanted to write this book to assist with people’s understanding of why some of
us are introverted, and vegan, and how we manage our lives when almost everyone
else in the world seems to be partying continuously and clustering like
paperclips to a magnet. The book was penned using my ‘wobbly-knobbly’ system.
In other words it was written entirely in my spare time, at night, when dressed
in my pyjamas, seated on a wobbly chair with a laptop perched on my knobbly
knees! By the time I’d written over a hundred thousand words my bum, was
getting a bit stiff and my knees were wobbling around like Chubby Checker’s.
Introverts and recluses like you, especially if they
are also vegan, are often regarded as ‘oddball’. Would you agree with that?
Introverts
and especially introverted vegans are destined to be regarded by society
generally as being rather odd. However, Invisible
takes the ‘odd’ part of that sentence and turns it on its head to reveal
aspects of animal rights and introversion that delve into the deepest part of
human expression and does so, I hope, with lots of fun and good humor. Invisible is a strange, quirky and
satirical look into the life of a reclusive vegan writer. After reading this
book, I hope that most introverts will be remarking: ‘Thank goodness someone
has spoken for us at last.’
How
long have you been a vegan? Were you brought up in a vegan family?
I
completely stopped eating meat forty-two years ago and although I was brought
up in a household that consumed meat, as a child I never enjoyed eating dead
animals. To me, even as a boy, it seemed sickening. I loved animals and did not
want to kill them for any reason, and whenever possible I’d surreptitiously
shovel the bits of meat from my plate into a hanky or one of my pockets and
either feed them to our cat, Weegee, or pet tortoise, Sammy, or
dispose of them later in any way I could. Mostly though, I’d convince my mum
that I was having one of my famous ‘potato days’. ‘Good for the brain’, I’d
tell her. I was particularly repulsed by cans of corned beef. In summer, when
it was really hot, the meat would pour out of the can like some kind of fatty
glue and unfailingly reminded me of donkey diarrhea. Believe me, that was a
real appetite-killer!
I
also lived for fourteen months with a posh aunt who was a replica of Queen
Elizabeth. She even had a corgi which was an excellent vacuum-cleaner for my
unwanted meat. However, I had to be particularly careful because feeding a dog
at the table was, apparently, one of the worse crimes known to humankind and
punishable by a quite beastly term of imprisonment in the Tower of London, or
something equally as ghastly. Stuffing slices of beef into my hanky rarely
worked because the meat was usually covered in gravy, and when I shoved it into
the back-pocket of my little shorts it looked as if I’d had some kind of
embarrassingly unfortunate accident!
What
was it like for you when you ceased eating meat altogether in 1981?
Actually
I thought at first that it would be liberating but in fact I soon discovered
that it was a little weird because almost immediately just about everyone on
the planet began treating me like an alien. Hence the title of my book. I was
never a person to have lots of friends but the few I had soon melted away like
chocolate on a hot pavement. Even family couldn’t understand why I’d stopped
‘eating the dead’, as I call it on social media. I have always felt that
killing animals is one of the worst forms of bullying imaginable and that the
consumption of corpses takes bullying to a whole new level. I was aware of that
even when a child when the meat in my mouth seemed somehow shameful, ugly and,
frankly, messy.
Did people think that you were a little strange or in
any way different when you were a child?
Probably, although I can’t say for sure because I
didn’t have a lot to do with people generally. If I wasn’t hiding in an old
disused cinema with the ghosts of Errol Flynn or Fatty Arbuckle, I’d be roaming
alone at an old lighthouse on a rocky outcrop and hoping that the tide wouldn’t
come in too quickly, leaving me stranded. There would have been nothing worse
than being perched like a puffin on a rock-ledge all night, especially in
winter, because it would have been colder than a brass toilet in the Kremlin.
And
since then, how has your lifestyle been regarded by others?
Well,
the fact that I’m a recluse and a vegan is always regarded as being peculiar
but I think that there are a lot of people out there who would like to live as
I do. I have more that 21,000 followers on Twitter and approximately eighty
percent of them are either vegans or vegetarians. I often receive messages from
people who have read my Twitter profile and they say things like: ‘Your profile
exactly describes who I am.’
Do
you think that a lot of vegans are also introverts?
I
do. From a psychological point of view I can’t explain that, other than to say
that in my experience vegans generally are very intelligent and a lot of them
are extremely well educated. They are all, obviously, very compassionate, and
there seems to be significant correlation between intelligence and
introversion. I frequently point out on social media that despite the
archetypal characterization we frequently see on television and in films, it’s
perfectly okay to be the ‘quiet type’. We need to be who we are, be proud of
it, and ignore those who attempt to ridicule veganism or a quiet, introverted
lifestyle.
What
are some of the advantages of living a vegan life — advantages other than the
obvious ones such a better health and wellbeing?
Well,
clearly, the most important is the fact that vegans and vegetarians are the
first to be served on international flights! Actually this is just a
light-hearted tongue-in-cheek response, but it’s true. For some obscure reason
anyone ordering a vegan meal on these flights receives a little plastic tray
with a plastic knife and fork a whole hour before anyone else on the flight is
served, which is great if you’re vegan and hungry but often leads to envious
and hostile looks from other economy-class passengers as you tuck smugly into
your baked potato with Mexican beans and broccoli, all nicely overcooked,
squishy and microwaved to absolute imperfection.
I’m
only joking of course. There are many real attributes to being a vegan but for
me it’s principally the deep satisfaction of knowing that everything I eat,
absolutely everything, has not caused harm to any living creature. There is a
massive amount of happiness and satisfaction in that.
Was it difficult for you, as a reclusive introvert, to
tell the story about your private life and the introversion that has been part
of your persona since childhood?
When
I was a kid, about as tall as a gopher in a golf-hole, I’d regularly hide in a
cupboard under the stairs and pretend that I was the sole survivor left on
Earth after a zombie apocalypse. I couldn’t help it. I just liked to be alone.
I was drawn to seclusion like a mouse is drawn to (vegan) cheese-sticks. It’s
always been a part of who I am. I wanted to write about that in a frank and honest
way but also humorously because I knew that there were loads of introverts,
vegans and recluses out there who still feel that they are a bit strange
because they are so different. Not only did I want to use my words to try to
broaden our understanding of what it’s like to live as a vegan introvert in a
world that likes to ‘party’ excessively and gobble loads of meat, but I also
wanted to let all the introverts know that there is absolutely nothing wrong
with wearing odd socks all your life or madly running to the left while
everyone else is running to the right. It’s okay to be different. I was a
little apprehensive about writing of my private life but realized that if I
wanted to ‘connect’ with people on my own level I’d have to expose my inner
self to the world.
Your book deals with some weighty subjects — veganism,
animal rights, ethics, climate change, introversion and seclusion, but you
treat them all lightly. Was that a structural and deliberate literary approach?
Actually
I didn’t have any kind of ‘structure’ in mind when I began the book. I should
add that the book had its genesis while I was seated in a shopping mall trying
to remain camouflaged against a backdrop of potted plants. I saw a few strange
things that day, especially at the butcher’s counter, and being a lifelong
student of human nature I jotted them down on a few scraps of paper.
A
few days later I opened my laptop and, using these notes as a base, had soon
written almost half a chapter, and as the scenes I’d witnessed had been
peculiar and funny, it naturally followed that the chapter would also be
humorous. I found that I was able to use satirical humor to lighten the mood
when presenting some fairly serious stuff like ethical veganism, and thought
that would be far more effective than trying to get my message and story across
in a more somber and fact-filled way. I believe that if you can make people
smile or laugh, you’ve also made a friend, and I like to think of all my
readers as friends.
You’ve been vegan for more than forty-two years, did
you ever regret giving up meat and making that kind of compassionate
commitment?
Firstly, I never actually liked eating meat. I put my
very first gravy dinner on my head when I was still in a baby-chair and that’s
what made my hair impossibly curly — at least that’s what my Mum said. Ethical
veganism isn’t really a commitment, it’s a natural way of ‘being’. I was once
rather patronizingly told that I’d grow out of being a vegan, but that
statement was made by a bling-wearing chap at a TV station where I worked who
had once told me rather smugly that he’d taken an I.Q. test and the results had
come back negative!
In your book you present the theory that being
alone, spending a lot of your time in deep thought, might be responsible for
some of the startlingly accurate predictions you’ve made in the past. How does
that work?
Actually some of the predictions I’ve made have
completely astonished me when they came true. I believe that it may be
associated with my being alone a lot of the time, deep in thought. Quite
recently I had a sudden and powerful flash of the face of Anna Karen, the actor
who played ‘Olive’ in the TV series On
the Buses. I hadn’t thought about her or the program for decades but the
vision was so strong it stopped me in my tracks. She died that night and we
read about it in the news the following day.
Do you see a vegan future ahead?
That’s a question which deserves a more complex answer than I can give here. I discuss all this in my
book, or course, but briefly, I believe that we will move into a ‘vegan-ish’
future where the omnivores of today we cease killing animals for food and turn
instead to the use of ‘cultured meat’, which isn’t really vegan but is far more
compassionate and climate-friendly than the present system of killing animals
for food. We are already moving into that era and within ten years, I believe,
we will have made great strides in replacing slaughtered meat on the table.
Humans and their biological ancestors have been consuming meat for at least 2.9
million years, so things are not going to change overnight and we could be a
century away from abandoning any kind of meat altogether, including ‘cultured
meat’ but we are moving towards that point. It is my belief, and one I
frequently write about on social media, that vegans today are the pioneers of a
kinder, more compassionate future because they have evolved sooner than most of
humankind. That’s not to claim any kind of elitism, it’s just that the vegan
mind exists in a different space to the omnivore mind.
What kind or response do you receive
from meat-eaters when you talk about this vision of the future?
Disbelief, mainly. Many omnivores of today are
completely unaware of even the existence of ‘cultured’ meat and where it is in
its development. I’ve spoken to cattle-producers who believe that I’m a bit
nuts in even propounding such a theory, but in reality you can gain a glimpse
of what’s happening in the world when you see some of the major U.S.
meat-producers already investing in the development of ‘cultured’ meat, not
because they want to change the status quo, but because they can see that
‘cultured’ meat is the future and if they don’t climb on board now, then it
will probably impact their bottom line in the future.
What advice can
you give to people who, like you, lead reclusive, vegan, introverted lives?
Well, people who are naturally introverted, and
especially those who are vegan and reclusive like me, have probably been on the
receiving end of ‘advice’ all their lives and I expect they don’t need any more
from me. My book, however, outlines how I have dealt with being an introverted
reclusive vegan and animal rights campaigner, and I hope that in discussing my
experiences so openly, I’ll be giving others the confidence and strength to
continue their own introverted and reclusive lifestyles without having to feel
guilt or remorse or any other kind of negative emotion. It’s just okay to be
‘you’ and draw strength from your own individuality and commitment.
I understand
that you have always wanted to be virtually invisible — that’s even the title
of your book — and as a result you’ve become something of an expert in fading
into the background? Tell me about that.
It’s impossible to be invisible but we can be as
invisible as possible. I automatically use a whole range of methods to blend
into the background — usually very successfully, including my methods of
keeping meetings as short as possible so that I can get out of there quickly,
and even how to remain virtually invisible, even when you’re the centre of
attention. I do it all the time. It just comes naturally. I’ve even been
mistaken for a shop-dummy, which can be a little disconcerting when they’re
having an underwear sale, for example.
Do you think that being vegan is one
of the principal reasons why you have stepped back from society?
Absolutely. Living a vegan life, as most vegans will
agree, I’m sure,’ sets one apart from others. It’s then up to us to decide how
much we want to participate in society generally and that comes down to where
and how we work and how much we need or want the company of others. I’m lucky
in that I have been writing professionally for many decades and can retreat
into my own world, especially when writing novels, but I acknowledge that
others may not be so fortunate and will need to remain in social and
professional contact with people for a variety of reasons.
Additionally, frankly, I’m a little uncomfortable
about being around omnivores. I seem to be ‘in tune’ with vegans but I find
other people ‘discordant’. I guess that’s the best way I can describe it.
Vegans and non-vegans live in two separate spheres of existence, but hopefully
the future will blend us into one when the world becomes a more compassionate
place for all.
Invisible — the Essential Guide for Aliens Stranded on Earth has been published by Big Sky Publishing and is available through all major online book retailers in both printed and e-book form.
Author’s
website: https://drtonymatthews.weebly.com
Twitter:
@tonytheauthor
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