Consequences

‘That which we haven’t got but want’ could be okay were it not for the fact that we’re careless in not considering negative ‘consequences’ - we’re either unconcerned or unaware that we might be the cause of someone else’s dismay.
When we do question consequences, as we do most times before acting, we weigh decisions with care. But when we don’t we pay dearly. We have no protection. The consequences spring out of nowhere. We are shocked. (This, incidentally, is the same shock you see on people’s faces when you first explain what ‘vegan’ means - they suddenly have to face some of the consequences of their own actions).
When we don’t question consequences we soon enough don’t even see them. Then the blind eye kicks in – it’s the miracle of taboo where whole societies can perform rituals without considering consequences. For example, take the meat-eating ritual, the eat-what-you-feel-like ritual. When we eat meat it’s likely we don’t, even for one moment, consider the animals we’re eating. The ‘ritual’ helps us ignore ‘the consequences of our actions’, even when they’re staring us in the face. That ability to switch off is a true feat of mental gymnastics, compounded by our ability to then turn-on some ‘hostility’ when a ‘certain subject’ is mentioned (that’s the taboo bit). When we accept, defend or even worship this particular taboo we are joined by almost everyone we know. It acts as an effective defence from the attacks of angry vegans who might be passing by.
If we are confronted, if we’re forced to confront ‘this’, this is when we might feel as if we’ve just stepped on a dog turd, when we’re put into a state of shock by a mere piece of information. Perhaps it’s guilt we feel or perhaps embarrassment, when we realise we’ve been spectacularly manipulated by the animal industries. This industry has done such a swifty on us that they’ve got us into the very act of not-thinking. They’ve anaesthetised our ‘receptors’.
“What cruelty?”