Mutual support

People who aren’t vegan are often dismissive of it, to keep it from growing in popularity and thus endangering their food- and clothes-buying habits. With zero encouragement, vegans have the hardest cause to fight. We therefore have to rely on other vegans for essential support. But there are thin pickings here because other vegans, suffering from the same adversity, have little support to give out. Motivational energy must come largely from a developed sense of altruism. It’s hard in one way, but useful in another since this is how vegans can develop empathy for the most marginalised beings, the exploited animals themselves. Nevertheless, energy is where you find it.

So maybe we need to look at motivation in a slightly different way. The more profound the work we do, the more of a spiritual dimension it has, the more we may realise that motive-force must come from inside ourselves. The scale of the changes we are trying to bring about always reminds us that the work we do is for a grand purpose. And in the face of being unnoticed, unrecognised and unsupported this sense of purpose has to be our main reward. If we don’t operate on this scale then we’ll always be looking elsewhere for motivational energy and be constantly disappointed when we can’t find it. Then altruism won’t work and we’ll revert to a catch-what-you-can mentality.
Energy. We need so little back, but we do need some, because we don’t come free. Our engines need just a touch of this good grease - a mere smile of recognition, and admission from someone that we aren’t talking nonsense, etc. If we are vegan then our support for another vegan is of greatest value. Whatever cause we are fighting for, part of that cause has to include the giving of support to others who are giving their time and energy for the same cause. Most of us are content with very little, not because we’re good (for having such strength of character) but because in this way we won’t run up gratitude debts. It means if we haven’t got much to give, it’s okay - small can still be effective. It isn’t really about the amount we do but the spirit in which we do it. We aren’t trying to build with bricks here but with a sort of magic that can conjure up a better world for all concerned.