Loving omnivores

I’m sitting here, keyed up, trying to sound constructive, trying not to be too obsessed, trying not to be too judgemental - it sometimes feels like driving through sludge with the hand brake on. It feels like balancing on a tight rope, concealing my thoughts in case I lose my balance. Vegans play a difficult game, especially when we, like everyone else, want approval yet, like no one else, we’re advocating for the animals at the same time.
When we do get it right, when we think we’ve got it across and people seem to agree, it feels great. No bad feelings, each has had a say, no insuperable differences, in theory … but we often discover we haven’t really succeeded after all, for they don’t DO it. They actually have no intention of following through with what they might have seemed to be agreeing with - eating more vegan food, becoming ‘vegan’.
Until someone gets there they’re nowhere. We might ask ourselves the same question till we’re blue-in-the-face - why is it taking some people so long to let go of their omnivous-ness, but the question is unanswerable – it’s a trap to want to know the answer, because it touches on unreasonableness ... which brings on judgement ... which brings on all sorts of agitation and pessimism.
It’s a curious phenomenon, peculiar to our age, that people do intend to do something ... but once started aren’t able keep it up. Once vegans come to realise that those who might have agreed with us yesterday no longer do today, then we may know how problematic the idea of a vegan lifestyle is, for some.
If we can come closer to understanding what constitutes the ‘free-will’ which humans prize so much, we’ll see why people are so set in their ways. They don’t like being told what to do, especially if it touches on the private world of eating and how we spend our money. If free-will stands in the way, that translates to a stubbornness - wanting to postpone anything that looks even vaguely uncomfortable. Going vegan does look like that.
If you get past these obstacles and finally do become vegan, then the next hurdle, testing us to our limits, is to love omnivores despite everything.