Passion plus

Sunday 8th August

Many people today are working for a cause they believe in. There are plenty to choose from. The pleasure palaces of old are being replaced by subtler pleasures, more closely connected with ‘global work’ or working for ‘the greater good’. Call it altruism if you like, but I predict these activities, as they become more attractive to people, will be the main driver of us all. They will be favourites, not so very different from any other passions which are characteristically self-motivated. Working at a passion is like not working at all.
Our main need though is to maintain our motivation when we are so used to the attractions of short-term remedies and the allure of the flesh pots. Can interest and passion be maintained when we’re dealing with potentials and dreams for the future?
Now, there’s a very interesting theory, that we create our own reality. If we’re streaming ahead into that wished-for reality we do it by dreaming it into existence first … and that can only happen when we drop ‘me’ motivation and draw on the energy potential of the ‘greater-good’. What we do might spread benefit and happiness but the altruism of it isn’t powered by righteousness – it’s distinctly different from the old fashioned morality of ‘doing good’. Vegans aren’t into goodness but involvement with their cause, the motivation for it is connected to an instinctive reality that exists alongside conventional reality. For better or worse, a vegan-world is a place where we’re deliberately de-emphasising ‘me’ and replacing it. By doing without it we settle for a truth so inspiring that we must run with it: a sober truth that might seem self-denying at first. It is that we humans don’t deserve rights per se, because we can’t be trusted with them. We can’t be trusted with privileges because we always abuse them out of ‘me’ interest. Humans can’t be trusted around animals because we can’t be trusted not to exploit them. The learning and the teaching of this is what drives vegans to work hard without much encouragement. This is ONE HUGE LESSON humanity is having to learn.
By lowering testosterone levels a bit and growing more affectionate with each other, by respecting our environment more, by tuning into empathy more, we have a strong driver. We see a self-motivated, personal power driven by self-perpetuating energy, and in that there’s hope … as long as what we’re doing is done for the greater good.
All this is not a bad exchange for the loss of one or two primitive sensations, giving up many non-essential foodstuffs like milks and chocolates and creams and meats and sea-foods and cheesy bits, and all the other ‘yummy-yummies’ in the food halls … oh, and the wools and silks and the leathers too. All these fripperies from past periods can be dropped, and in doing so we realise that we don’t have to follow orders any more (except our own!!), we’re more in charge of our own decision making. The results is in seeing the growth of ‘friendly’ business and the demise of unfriendly businesses. And soon enough, as veganism grows, the whole idea of ‘them’ being in any sort of business at all will seem ludicrous.