That type of energy

Thursday 24th September

Our society admires those who get ahead, but should that include those who get ahead by squeezing whatever they can get from the land, the animals or any other bonanza?
The successful people may be kind and loving to their family but when it comes to their money, or rather to their source of income, they can be ruthless. The advantage-takers are so keen on success that they will even enslave innocent animals to make money. And by contradicting humane principles they thumb their noses at everything the idealist stands for.
The idealist would rather forgo the chance to make money than get mixed up with anyone in the business of advantage-taking, especially on the scale that animal farmers operate. Consumers connive with the pastoralist or the factory farmer, making them immune to criminal prosecution and applauded for giving the consumers what they want. This alliance is strong enough to keep the idealist left out in the cold.
Idealists get little encouragement. They’re often called ‘bleeding hearts’ or accused of trying to subvert society by ‘the alliance’, but they enjoy one significant advantage. They have an ambition to serve the greater good, and this principle pays back in terms of energy, a special kind of energy. By acting as guardians to children, animals, forests, the marginalised, etc., life is given some meaning, and when that’s combined with the principle of harmlessness a special type of energy is created.
Many people aren’t aware of idealism or the energy it produces. Perhaps they don’t miss what they’ve never had, and so they miss the point of why the idealist works so hard for what seems like so little reward. But idealism and the belief in better things to come produces a self-perpetuating energy that works on the basis that what you put it you get out. And the more you get the more you want to put in. It’s quite unlike the superficial energy that comes from money-making or advantage-taking.