Article 30. Going Vegan

Does switching from one attitude to another, one diet to another, mean a long and painful transition or something more painless, even enjoyable? Could it be like falling in love? The ‘good idea’ going from the bliss of idealistic theory to a habit that becomes part of our comfort zone. Switching attitudes may take some time - but hopefully not too much time.
With veganism, it starts out as a very conscious attitude change, then hopefully moves on to something we just ‘do’, unselfconsciously. Perhaps it does need time to develop this one idea, for people en masse to come around to it, but if this one idea can transform our species, then any amount of hard work and patience is worth considering.

Say I were you. Would I start my day by doing certain new things and not doing certain old things? It might just come down to remembering to do it each day. Forming new habits might have to be a slower process than I want. To make slow, deliberate, assured change might be what I want for myself on the private side and when all that is in place, then maybe I’ll want to get political. Then I get a bit urgent and need to speed things up. I want to break down barriers. I don’t want to lose my advantage. And yet we’re not talking about having a tough reputation in the bear pit, but talking about issues with potentially soft and sensitive free-willed beings, who will decide things for themselves. Once we get actively advocating animal rights, it’s hard not to be pushy and we forget how easy it is for people to simply walk away from us, in their feelings anyway. However good we think an idea is, it shouldn’t be forced onto others. Any uninvited intrusions into other peoples’ private space, any violence, pushiness or even chutzpah, needs either to be handled with respect or eliminated altogether. As soon as our good idea is ‘fired’ at people (aiming at their values) they sense something uncomfortable and it puts them off completely, even swearing off both the good idea and us - for ever.