At ease with equality

1635: 

I think the finding of truth isn’t about attempting perfection or seeking enlightenment or taking a ‘spiritual path in life’, it’s about getting used to change when circumstances demand it, and being at ease with this need to change. Change keeps alive a questioning of those things others aren’t bothered enough to question.

For me, the most bothering thing I can think of, is the routine abuse of sensitive and sentient beings. The reason why it is so bothering is that so many are so innocent and are so badly abused. As a vegan I want to expand my sense of responsibility over this matter, to raise my sensibility, to penetrate as deeply as I can the reason why fellow humans can be so careless and cruel, to such as animals. It makes me want to do anything I can to understand something which, on the face of it, is very confusing.

I think I know how to treat my nearest and dearest - with love and affection. But why would I stop there? I have to ask myself if there’s any reason to stop anywhere, with humans, animals, environment, any of it. Is there anything that doesn’t deserve affection, as it passes within range?

I see myself leaping to the defence of animals, because they so badly need defending, even though this is going to involve me in a long to-do list. My un-ease comes from being perpetually overwhelmed by that long list. In my attempt to shorten it, I’m forced to prioritise my interests and to keep my goals achievable – I try to ration-out my reserves of ‘care’. And that’s how I end up being more partial than I’d like to be, and therefore guilty of inconsistency.

On examining my own inconsistency and then finding my to-do list overwhelming, what stops me from becoming drained by it all is that I've lifted the biggest weight of guilt from my shoulders, by simply being vegan. By being vegan, what needs most care is cared about. That makes everything much more straight forward for me.

I know I’m a caring being, because I don’t mind how much inconvenience I’m put to, as long as I’m not dodging the issues. Facing the issues takes a lot of energy. There’s a danger that I’ll try to spread myself too thinly and succeed in pleasing nobody, least of all myself. Then there’s the danger of putting issues I know I should deal with onto the ‘back burner’. And then I’m ashamed, and my guilt cancels out my best, self-issued ‘brownie points’. I think I’m consistent until I line up my responsibilities. And then I know I’m not.

I know how inconsistent I can be when I disregard the ‘homeless man’ on the streets at night - I see him and ask myself why should I care about him? I don’t want to take on another ‘responsibility’, so I pretend not to notice him. And in the same way, I pretend NOT to notice what I know I have noticed.

It’s the same with the way most people choose NOT to see the animals behind the food they’re eating. They know that chickens and pigs are just like dogs and cats, yet they treat one as unlovable and the other as loveable. The homeless man is just as deserving of love as my closest friend and yet I can ignore him completely. That’s an absurdity I have to live with. It just means that I haven’t developed my 'sense of responsibility' enough yet, in much the same way as the collective human race has NOT made an agreement with itself, about regarding all sensitive and sentient creatures as of equal importance.