Good maintenance

1633: 

Many of our most treasured possessions are complex structures, often machines which require maintenance or care if they are to be useful for a long time. Owning something requires our ‘caring’ for it, so we become automatically involved with its ‘well-being’ as soon as we start to make use of it.

Car maintenance, aircraft maintenance, teeth maintenance, each pose a risk if we don’t attend to them appropriately - like the failure to maintain an aircraft, and it all ending in catastrophe.

 But all this caring, maintaining, cleaning, etc. takes time and effort. Each application of care costs us something. The insurance industry is a crude fail-safe for those of us who are slack about ongoing maintenance. We face a dichotomy. We have two choices: either we spend money and feel comfortable or we downgrade the importance of peace-of-mind and save our money. Usually they win - their dire warnings scare us into parting with our money.

Each day, there’s a list of things to do, things to be maintained, and we aren’t sure what to prioritise - a little care here, an insurance policy there, but it can easily become overwhelming. We might spend a lifetime searching for the best insurance but never rid ourselves of a drowning feeling; and we are even closer to drowning if we ever become ill, so keeping healthy often rises up to the top of most people’s list. In searching for the best overall option in life, the least expensive safeguard, we might hit upon veganism.

Being vegan is, at the very least, a good insurance policy. The food almost guarantees bodily health. Some extremely health conscious vegans regard their bodies as temples, but for others of us it becomes even more important to maintain good conscience (cruelty-free foods, environmentally safer foods, etc). On a personal level, veganism builds self-discipline, and in that way, by daily practice, we strengthen ourselves; with certain eating decisions being made many times a day, it builds a strength of character which makes us feel safer than anything else could. And part of this process allows us to avoid being controlled by outside forces, business interests or being influenced by misinformation. As vegans, we can better control our own destinies, and in that way feel all the safer.

Like a well maintained bike or aircraft, the principles on which veganism is based keeps our machinery on all levels, functioning well. We can feel safe using this diet, knowing that the food we eat is not hurting our bodies or the farmed animals which omnivores think nothing of exploiting. It lets us understand the significance of empathy and demonstrates continuously how empathy has a strengthening effect on our very psyche.