Why talk to vegans?

Vegans try to mop up some of the damage they see about them. They try to dig everyone out of their ruts, try to repair cracks. But try as they might, they’re seldom trusted enough to be listened to. Their authority and advice is doubted. They are deemed ridiculous. Vegans are made to feel uncomfortable. But we are on a mission, so we’re not easily putt off.
We so much want to smooth the surface of the mirror, let people see themselves more accurately, etc. We try to get people to follow our advice. We want them to see their potentials in this mirror ... mirror metaphor almost over! Essentially mirror-polishing is what vegans are good at.
Early in our lives all the attractions and delusions seem interesting. We chase them fearlessly. We start out with all the best intentions. We are our own world and as part of that we search for improvement. Self-improvement ... but we don’t always get what we expect. We might discover what we don’t want - disillusionment, disappointment and dullness - but how to avoid it? Ugliness, being so prominent, spoils the whole life experience for us. “Ugh”. We question, “What else is there?” ... and we become old and grey from the futility of never finding it. Light. We become convinced that nothing will ever really change. The disappointment of that translates as “It will never happen for me”.
You’d agree that this is a truly tragic state of mind? We eventually ‘come to know’ improvement is unlikely. We say, “We want to be good. We want the best for our kids, but WOW! What hope is there?”
We start to believe that no good can come from any decision we make. We therefore reject ‘solutions’ because they seem too confronting. We see the theory, as with veganism, but the pain! The necessary personal change-making! “Life’s hard enough without some vegan telling me what I can and can’t eat … based on some animal-defendy-moral principle. Life’s hard enough without all that. No more extra attitude, thanks”. And it’s this very attitude that stops us being ‘vegan’. It’s a prospect that horrifies most people. Being vegan mean starving to death and/or social suicide … and who needs that? One’s ‘attitude towards veganism’ is deeply set in reasoning. Meeting a vegan: we rehearse our words. So, when someone tells you they’re vegan you know exactly what you’re going to say. You’ll say anything in fact, to stop them telling us what is “right”, and having to defend our own lifestyle in front of them.
Why trust a vegan? They always try to make omnivores feel uncomfortable when you talk to them. The whole trust-a-vegan thing, in the flash of a single thought, kicks in. When talking to a vegan.