Pessimism

Pessimism is connected with things going badly wrong psychologically (some negative attitude or hatred or resentment which sours our life). It’s our pessimism making it impossible to agree to anything that might make matters worse for ourselves.
In this state of mind just holding our life together is more immediate than entertaining new ideas; dancing off into the sunlight on some adventure, exploring the human connection with … animals. Struggling to survive - in this state of thinking it’s likely we’re less receptive to sound advice. “Go away” thinking is justified by our own not-liking or trusting the person with the ‘new idea’.
When vegans take on the role of advisor, to offer what we know, we forget we need permission to come in. We need to win some trust. If we’re really compassionate, passionate and patient, we’re more likely to do just that. Then trust is established. To get to that point we need to be listening to all their reasons (for not being vegan) whilst being the compassionate all-rounder ourself. Not their judge. Trust is there if we don’t judge.
Coming back to the arsonist, judging them goes some way to satisfying the need for revenge – the wish to simply punish. The arsonist acts illegally and immorally and therefore provides a perfect excuse for everyone in the community to come together on this one matter. And because we can all take part in this judgement, we are justified in being uncharitable.
Which is what vegans sometimes do, when they hear about the latest coronary heart disease statistics. They like what they hear, because this statistic is so useful for our arguments concerning the eating of meat. Those stats do help our argument to be taken seriously but our mistake is to forget to express concern for the people with heart disease. If we ignore their tragedy we seem callous. And then our motives won’t seem trustworthy.