Consistent

1837:

The defence of animals is important because there are so many of them, with their lives sucked out of them. They so badly need defending. That involves a long ‘to-do’ list, and then feeling perpetually overwhelmed by that long list. The trap is to attempt to shorten the list and force a prioritisation of interests which might also happen to be not-too-inconvenient.

Vegans’ priority is for animals. Their safety. And that depends on us keeping our own goals achievable, without losing the plot or giving up. The other side of our having empathy for animals is that we fear the loss of our own personal energy. We force ourselves to ration-out our reserves of ‘care’, ending up being partial and inconsistent.

But all this, a big part of all this activism for animals is a personal journey of self-insight. Big efforts being made both for me and for helping animal liberation. So, on the personal side - from this starting point we can examine our own inconsistencies. But if we are already vegan, at least we have a whole heap of ‘inconsistency’ lifted from our shoulders. We might also find our to-do list overwhelming but we can clutch at a rail for support, hold firmly to ‘what needs most care is most cared about’.

Some things we know about ourselves. Essentially, that we are caring beings. We’re good at it. Oftentimes, we don’t care how much inconvenience we have to put up with, as long as we aren’t dodging issues. Facing big issues takes a lot of energy. We can easily spread ourselves too thinly. We can end up pleasing nobody, least of all ourselves. We can easily spread the issues out in front of us and put what we can’t face onto the ‘back burner’. Later, it, languishing there untended - the neglected issue going nowhere. Making us feel ashamed. And the guilt about that cancelling out our best efforts, elsewhere.

Now if, like me, you feel inconsistent, you’ll find yourself up-ing one issue and ignoring another. I disregard the ‘homeless man’ on the street. As I walk past him, I ask myself why should I care about him? I already have enough on my plate. I don’t want to take on another ‘responsibility’, so I pretend not to notice him. And in the same way, most people choose NOT to see the animals behind the food they’re eating. They know that chickens and pigs are not much different to dogs and cats, but they are to be found unlovable. The homeless man is just as deserving of love as my closest friend. Yet I ignore him completely. It just means I haven’t developed enough ‘somethingorother’ yet, in much the same way as omnivores haven’t developed beyond speciesism.

What a world it would be if they were consistent, in regard to one single idea. That all sensitive and sentient creatures are of equal importance in terms of our mutual resonating vibrations. Whew!