I'll take an apple with that epiphany, thanks

Yesterday I went to Duane Reade to pick up some face wash and I ended up getting some Epiphany as well.

I was standing in the girly aisle, looking for this Oil of Olay foaming face wash that I'd tried recently and really liked. I'd run out of my usual facial cleanser the day before and knew it would be at least three days until I would be able to go to the only place in Manhattan that carries it, so I needed to get something to tide me over. I can't just not wash my face for three days, after all. 

I've had problems with my skin since I first hit puberty. I've been Acne Girl for most of my life. I've tried every acne treatment under the sun including but not limited to: ProActive, vitamins and herbal supplements, cortisone injections in my face, Accutane (which made me bleed out of my anus for six months) (no, unfortunately, I'm not kidding), over $5,000 of laser treatments (which I thankfully didn't have to pay for, but still), regular facials, prescription meds, over-the-counter meds, Microdermabrasion, the list goes on and on. After all this, I have discovered that A) my acne is hormonal B) my acne is exacerbated by anything that dries my skin out even a teensy bit and C) my skin looks the best when I wash it with super gentle cleansers and use tons of moisturizer. With all this in mind, it's kind of a big deal that I tried a new cleanser that I really like and that doesn't cost $20 AN OUNCE. And as I'm standing there searching the Oil of Olay products for the foaming face wash I’m planning to buy, I'm fantasizing about how this new cleanser is going make my skin so be-a-u-tiful and how I'll save money in the process since it's $7 for 12 ounces and the other stuff I've been using is $20 for ONE OUNCE. I find the cleanser and happily pull it off the shelf, admiring the snazzy label and smiling at how clever I'm being and how much money I'm saving. I flip the bottle over in my hand just to be sure the back label has the four magic words I always look for: Not Tested On Animals. And they aren’t there. To add insult to injury, I discover that Oil of Olay is distributed by the Godfather of ALL Evil Corporations, Proctor & Gamble*. My heart sinks. I really want to buy the cleanser because it is cheap and I believe it will not cause me to break out, but I really don’t want to buy something that is A) tested on animals and B) distributed by the demons at P&G. And as I’m standing there, I swear to you, a little red cartoon devil pops up on my left shoulder and whispers, “It’s ok. Just buy it. Your skin will be so beautiful! Just buy it this one time. One bottle of the stuff doesn’t kill or save a rabbit.” And then a little white cartoon angel pops up on my right shoulder, “Really? Can you REALLY live with yourself if you wash your face with something that was shot into the eyes of a rabbit just to see if it would burn his little rabbit eyes?” The cartoon angel won. I put the bottle back on the shelf and picked up a different product. I can’t remember every product I looked at that afternoon, but I will tell you that I looked at about seven different products and of the seven, all but one were either distributed by P&G or did not claim no animal testing. Only one. So I bought that. But I’ve gotta say, it was really really frustrating to spend upwards of twenty minutes trying to find a face wash that wasn’t distributed by P&G and wasn’t tested on animals. And the whole time I was looking for something I would not feel guilty buying, the little cartoon devil was sitting on my shoulder trying to convince me to just forget it, don’t worry about it, just buy what I want to buy because I’m not gonna make much a difference no matter what I do, I’m only one person.

And it hit me, for the first time ever, what that story** about Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge really means.

As it is told in the Bible, God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and they didn’t know why. But once they disobeyed Him and ate the fruit of that world-changing tree, they figured it out pretty quick. They ate the apple and were suddenly filled with shame over the nakedness of their bodies and they were suddenly aware of their sins and blah blah blah, right? So, as I am figuring it, and till now I’ve honestly really never given it much thought, if they hadn't eaten the fruit, they would’ve lived their lives happily oblivious to their nakedness and their various sins. It was only because they had knowledge that they felt shame and guilt.

Is the Bible saying that people should be ignorant? I mean, I think what it is saying is that if you have knowledge, you experience shame and guilt. If you are ignorant, you live in happiness. Like that old phrase, “Ignorance is bliss”. Is there an old phrase meaning “Knowledge is torture”? Maybe there should be.

This popped into my head because I’m standing in the aisle at Duane Reade wishing that I didn’t know anything about P&G, that I didn’t know about animal testing, that I didn’t care about my carbon footprint, that I didn’t give a shit about nutrition or the overall health of my body. I’m standing in Duane Reade reading the backs of bottles and wishing that I was completely ignorant of all this shit that seems to only make my life more complicated. But I am not ignorant and I do know and I, personally, cannot take the guilt that comes along with ignoring the facts.

I’ve eaten from the Tree of Knowledge.

I’m fucked.

*Proctor and Gamble admittedly does terrible things to animals during testing. Terrible, disgusting, awful things that are so disturbing I won’t write about them here. But I will tell you that P&G spends more money per year advertising that they are using “alternatives” to cruel animal testing than they spend on trying to find actual alternatives to cruel animal testing. And they test on dogs and cats too. Just so you know. If you are interested in learning more, check out www.uncaged.co.uk.

**I hope I’m not offending any of my readers (all four of you) by calling it a story. Isn’t that what it is, though? I have no idea.