promoting vegan, continued...

“Vegan”. An idea. A new attitude. Does switching from one attitude to another, one diet to another, mean a long and painful transition or something shorter, even as enjoyable as falling in love? Progressing into it depends on how much we want it, how we come upon it, if we are coerced into it. But assuming we were free agents, inspired by the idea, and we took up the ‘good idea’ of going vegan, and went from idealistic theory to comfortable habit - that is one huge journey. We can remember where we started it and how it is ended up; it started as a very conscious change and eventually became something we just ‘do’, unselfconsciously.
That’s how it may have gone in our own private lives, but almost certainly it is going to be more complex when it comes to swinging others around. To be successful at that is almost as important, for many of us, as it was to become vegan ourselves. Meat eaters seem so obstinate, they just won’t budge. Every time a wave of despair sweeps over us, because we see that people are just carrying on regardless, it slows us down. Saps our energy.
Perhaps we should realise what we are dealing with here - this one idea can transform our species, get us all back on track, give humanity a chance to become healthy, creative, benign and friendly. It could make us far more non-violent. Imagine the worth of that. Then any amount of hard work and patience on our part, any amount of exasperation, would seem a mere nothing.

Here’s the parallel scenario: how it might go with me - the aim is to establish a vegan lifestyle into my own life. I’d start my day by doing certain new things and not doing certain old things, forming new habits, making deliberate, assured changes. This, on the private side, is what I want for myself. But when all that is in place, then maybe I want to get political. I feel an urgency and want to speed things up. I want to break down barriers. I want to keep a ‘high’ so I don’t lose my advantage. I want to promote veganism, start a revolution in my corner of the world. It’s as if we’ve been transformed from a wannabe vegan to vegan warrior, ready to take on the world.
And yet this isn’t reality. We’re not hardened politicians with a tough reputation, ripping into our adversaries in the bear pit, we’re just ordinary people talking with other ordinary people, like ourselves, about issues. Our ‘adversaries’ are sensitive free-willed beings, who will decide things for themselves, no matter what we say or how forcibly we say it. Once we start actively advocating animal rights, it’s hard not to get pushy. We forget how easy it is for people to simply walk away from us, in their feelings anyway. However good we think an idea is, it shouldn’t be forced onto others. Any uninvited contributions we make can be seen as intrusions into other peoples’ private space, especially when we call their morality into question - “You still eat meat?” … our good idea is ‘fired’ at people (aiming at their values) and they, sensing something uncomfortable, are put off. Perhaps they swear off both the good idea and us - for ever. And none of us would want that. That’s anti-promotion.