Article 29. It’s a Great Idea, but I Need a Kick-start . . .

My good idea is like a car with its engine cold.
I start the process of change. I latch onto this good idea and head directly into being vegan, non-violent, animal friendly, green, world transforming, ideal and everything else indisputable! But I know that once started, I must continue with it.
Definitely I want to leave violence behind me. I want to become a peaceful person. But how do I deal with the "feelings" of violence, woven so tightly into my personal experience and social culture? I’m overwhelmed by the difficulty of dropping it entirely. But I try. I aim to be no less than celibate with regard to animal abuse. I take on a vegan diet. I chuck out my leathers, and so on. The idea continues to inspire me. But what about my "feelings"? It may be a good idea in theory, but is it going to make me "feel" better?
We have doubts. Not about the principle, but about the practice. And that’s where sensitivity is a boon and a burden. We want to kick the idea of veganism about, let it settle into our lives, live with it, let it be known in our social groups without our worrying about what others may say. Then we can feel comfortable with it.
So, I decide to give up eating unethical stuff and that makes me think well of myself. I get ready to change. But it’s hard, slow work because I can’t see any wheels turning or any momentum building. I’m impatient waiting for things to happen. I want everyone to become mutual supports. Since that is unrealistic, I see my life as one where I am wading through treacle, in a state of ever-increasing social isolation. On the plus side, I get a surprise in finding the change of diet isn’t such a big a problem after all. By most accounts, this diet switch is found to be surprisingly easy. With some new products in the cupboard and a few new recipes, we can soon come to like the different food and not miss the animal-based foods we once enjoyed eating. But there are other difficulties that need to be mentioned that sometimes aren’t foreseen. We worry that our initial resolve might fade before the new lifestyle is established. So we go carefully and maybe decide to change incrementally. Trouble is, we probably know a few people who have gone half way and never progressed much beyond that. That is a sad position to find yourself in, neither betwixt nor between.
In heading towards being vegan, we might decide to go in full bore, using will-power, anything to get to the ‘other side’. But whichever ever works best for us food and diet-wise, there are other substantial issues still to face. We notice when certain things seem to be missing. It’s as if we’ve lost some things that we’d come to rely on in the past, like the acceptance of people who now think we are a bit weird and the habits that we enjoyed but which we’ve now purged! Our comfort foods, gone! Judgments we might have enjoyed making once, gone! Vegans experience changes on various levels when they start this boycott. They face the tension that exists between passion and patience and whilst veganism seems a good idea, it still needs to be strengthened to withstand all that drag-down inertia of the conventional world.

know where I want to go with it, my direction is clear, but there’s not enough forward motion. I need a kick start and so I look to those ideals out of which the good idea emerged. But the ideals themselves seem fuzzy and I wonder if I’ve put too much emphasis on change. Here I am, trying to change into a non-violent person (‘Go Vegan’ the slogan says). But I need more than fearlessness. I need to uphold ideals and ignore how others might see me. I’m inspired by a good idea even if I don’t fully understand it. Like when we fall in love and then have to learn to live together. We grasp the idea well enough but how do we get our brain around it, to put it into practice?
When we ‘go vegan’ - we talk about it. And because of what we’ve said, we have to make it work. Perhaps we squeeze it a little too hard and let it take on too much importance, all at once. We ignore how others might feel about it. We pursue the idea, no matter what. We don’t want our good idea turning sour on us, because that means going back to square one. Our image would never live it down. And besides, I want to understand the idea better, get into it with others so they, too, can be company for me. I want this idea to be everywhere … and then I stress about it.
This mixture of concerns can turn to despair, because veganism has yet so little social momentum of its own. It is up to the individual to bravely keep issues in the public eye whilst dealing with any problems quietly, at least until the ‘good idea’ is established in our own private life.
It may be that no one is fooled by this brave act. If contradictions show up in the new way we behave, then everything about us can seem a bit dodgy. Getting hold of this (vegan) idea, developing it and then practising it, isn’t quite the same as proving its merits. Many vegans live private vegan lives with no one else being adversely affected. But others are out there under the noses of everyone, acting as public vegans, advocating veganism to anyone they meet. Then there are those others of us who like to see ourselves as dynamic activists, who have a dream, but aren’t necessarily effective at communicating it. We might like to know why we fail. So for those of us who aren’t stunningly successful, we probably have to be extra careful to look after our own image as well as the image of the idea itself. To be effective, we must make our ‘good idea’ attractive enough to be habit forming if taken up. The more we can show that each one of us is going through the same process, simultaneously, for better or for worse, the better we can understand each other. And while some might have been at veganism longer than others, no one knows the definitive way to live or sell this idea because everyone thinks differently. The only reliable thing is that the closer we are when talking, the clearer the communication. The more at ease we are with our subject and the people we are with, the more effectively we can get something across that is dear to our heart. Apart from all the information we’d like to impart, we should spare a moment to explain the most central truth. That we are all undergoing the same journey, a less judgmental one.