Vegan principle

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Meaning no harm to animals - this is at the heart of vegan principle, and it occupies my thoughts every day because I keep seeing harm being done everywhere ... to animals.
It’s mostly shielded behind the doors of farms and abattoirs but the harm jumps out at me, when I see it represented in animal products ... everywhere, being pushed on TV, weighing down supermarket shelves. We’re awash with the stuff. They’re in-your-face reminders ... of what we don’t get to see but what we do know about.
Because of this daily holocaust of animal-killing going on all the time, it’s going to be on my mind ... unless I can smother my thoughts. If one is an eater of animals then thought-smothering takes place many times a day.
When I decided to stop eating all this stuff out of animals’ bodies (out of murdered animals’ bodies I should say) I knew it would mean me giving up my favourite breakfast. No need to mention what it was. It wasn’t an unusual dish, and I liked it very much.
The idea of going vegan was a huge step, but actually taking the first step wasn’t as hard as I’d expected. I anticipated ‘huge’ but it wasn’t so hard at all. The hard thing was meal-making. Without the huge variety of quick-to-cook or ready-to-eat foods, bummer!, I’d have to get used to bringing things up from raw (although today, at least here in Sydney, there’s a lot of vegan ready-mades available, and not too costly, even better for vegans in UK, Europe, USA). But even there, vegans have nowhere near the same variety and choices that omnivores enjoy.
Going vegan costs time, effort and convenience. It means missing many heretofore-available treats, plus, plus, plus. So why is it that most vegans I've met consider ‘going back to being non-vegan’ a bizarre idea? It’s not because they’re extra nice people or extremely disciplined but because the plant-based-food-benefits are just too good to be true. To experience this sort of plant-driven energy each day is ... well, indescribable - I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s like trying to explain ‘red’ to a blind person.
It isn’t just about food, it's the whole lifestyle and thought process that goes with it. It’s what Jeffrey Masson calls “a somersaulting-forward process”. If you decided to try to become vegan, you’d be opening up to an entirely new experience of your world, and that’s just on the personal side. The experience I have, in my own life, is one of usefulness, or at least of non-destructiveness. I don’t feel as though I’m acting against my world.
What ‘going-vegan’ implies is global health. This principle of harmlessness doesn’t necessarily make things easier and it’s true, for me, that I don’t connect with others too well, unless on a superficial level. Also I don’t feel any less frustrated than I did in my carnivore days, but the significance of this principle (vegan principle) is that it makes me feel like I’m dancing with angels – for me it’s like flying alongside some very great ideals and ethical principles which are like updraughts, uplifting, inspiring me ... and it grows, this feeling. It gradually taking the place of my previous love of Mars Bars ... but … there’s always a ‘but’.
I daily fall to the ground with a thud, as I’m flung back into the reality of being vegan in a non-vegan world. The hardness of people. I see this and want to try to change them - they react badly - I resent them for reacting badly - I (albeit very subtly) condemn them - they see through any amount of subtlety ... and they hate it - they give me the impression I’m being aggressive - I counter attack by making some small-but-sharp value judgement (never of course expressed as sharply as I’m thinking it - like, “all omnivores are hypocrites”). It shows, they pick it up telepathically ... something in the air changes. And so it goes on. I attack, even when I know it puts people’s backs up.
So I must be careful, like a card player, not to use all my trump cards too soon.
Where’s all this going? Me talking to you, you reacting to my tone, my words, my looks, my arguments. You see me trying to provoke an argument? I look like I’m on the attack.
What happens? I lose any advantage I might have had. I lose control of my ‘vibrations’ - you see through me. My thinking and feelings are being read ... and it happens precisely at the moment I choose to talk ‘Animal Rights’.
When I get to these ‘time-points’ I try to remember (usually only in the nick of time) that I am NOT trying to change anyone’s mind. That’s something they might want to do for themselves, in their own good time. I’m here, trying to get a little useful information across, preferably quick and to the point ... and sometimes not too pointedly either, since the sharper my words the more my inner ‘vibration’ will give me away.
This is how I see it: talk is a two way road, listening is part of talking, I’ll wait till it’s my turn to speak. I’ll expect a response not altogether-to-my-liking ... my main concern is NOT to take umbrage. I say something ‘vegan-inspired’ and they rubbish it ... you know the pattern. My ego gets bruised, inevitably, and I remember at that point in time NOT to get offended (either by their poor response or anger or ridicule). Hardened activists are surely immune to any of these inevitable surface tensions.
I like to think of these interactions (we get ourselves involved in) as Big Events. However they’re probably not big events to those we’re speaking with - they don’t realise why we’re getting excited over this animal thing. They won’t necessarily realise that we’re ‘being urgent’ both on the animals’ behalf and for them too. Vegan advocates, me included, only want to prevent life-threatening dangers visiting otherwise safe souls.
The logic behind vegan principle is like the fascinating and memorable events you enjoy about a good book, a good story. It’s all in the detail - details we think about when we’re alone with our own private thoughts.
I hope whatever I have to say on this subject will just seem like a good story. But knowing me, I probably end up coming on too strong. And when I’m trampling the roses, getting confrontational or personal, that’s when I start to seem unfriendly - as soon as I withdraw my affection it shows. Every one of us, from babyhood to old age is hard-wired to spot this danger in others, spotting that they may have a nasty side ... and then, bang-o, we start to pick up a whiff of judgement in the air.
It stops people listening. It slows down the changing-of-views-process.