Example-setting

Whether vegan or omnivore, we are a powerful ship steaming into the future in the form of example-setting. It’s our only chance to get enough strength behind an idea which faces Goliath opposition. But the opposition isn’t only over food issues but miriad issues, all of which we face right NOW. It’s a tad overwhelming – vegan food one day, organic food the next. Health issues, animal issues, environmental impacts, where does it all stop? Can I afford to be that spread out?
I suppose it comes down to the way we look at things. When I get a flier through the mail about the latest tragic event, asking me for a contribution, it feels like plugging a hole in a leaky bucket. Where does one stop? But then why not start? Slipping a fiver in an envelope won’t solve the world’s problems but it’s a start, and every gesture we can make helps … but CAN we be like this? The pressure is always on us to conform, to take the easier way, to go the cheaper way and that translates into our own consumer habits. Our involvement in waste is as regular as our involvement in cruelty. Being profligate with paper isn’t much different to ruining the land or hens being ’wasted’. Abuse, cruelty, taking advantage of resources, it’s all much the same thing: we do it and we don’t believe we can STOP doing it. We don’t think we are good example-setters.
The trick is surely not to be overwhelmed by all the issues but to do what we feel comfortable about doing. And in the doing we can realise the potential for us to keep on learning and keep on going deeper; in that way the world will eventually benefit from what we have understood … about ourselves.