Imprisoned in ‘the pit’

570: Friday

As humans we’re subject to the human condition, born into a pit of cruelty and waste. People accept it because they don’t think they’ll ever get out of it. As vegans, we don’t maybe have quite the same trapped-in-‘the pit’ feeling. The first step we took, when we disassociated from Society’s routine waste and cruelty, when becoming vegan, was to leave behind a whole lot of thinking, food-wise, clothing-wise, attitude-wise. It relieved a lot of the pressure of prison-living. Me, being claustrophobic, I found life in the pit was that much less claustrophobic once I focused on the animals’ claustrophobia.

            Vegans understand that escape is possible, which lets us realise the importance of helping others to escape the human conditioning, brought on by being so mentally imprisoned.

            I’m bound to say a vegan diet solves many problems all at once. It’s good for the health of body and mind, obviously, but it builds other strengths too, not the least of which is becoming less self-obsessed, even dare I say, more altruistic? Working for the animals’ benefit has an efficacious effect on just about everything else we do. It’s certainly good for our ‘mental condition’, eases up a lot of spiritual things too but most spectacularly it hastens us forward, by steering us away from crap-foods and onto real foods. And that’s such a useful move towards our eventual escape.

            If we must live in the ‘pit’ (and most of us do), it’s knowing we can get ‘out’ that makes it less onerous. Part of the escape ticket is in the food we eat, but chiefly it’s the altruistic trend in other things we do. For vegans especially, it’s also about what we don’t do. Whatever all that amounts to, perhaps it allows us to tread more lightly on the land and tread more carefully in everything else we do, particularly when we’re putting ourselves out. It lets us relate to others more empathetically.

            In another way it comes back to our food, in that energy is such a crucial factor in life; we can only do things for others because we have enough extra energy;  we know we aren’t personally hooked on large amounts of energy-sapping junk. We avoid hundreds of available animal products and benefit gigantically from just that. There must be thousands of eating-items, which use appetising animal products, that attract most of us. By NOT boycotting them, and consequently NOT avoiding ‘animal’ commodities, we either lose energy through overweight or we become enslaved by them like an addict on other forms of ‘junk’. And with all this we give our financial support to the Animal Industries.

            Our ‘vegan habits’ largely protect us from the commercial food industry, simply by our avoiding hundreds of all-round-harmful consumer items. Boycotting is the ultimate act-of-escaping ‘the pit’.