Satisfying repairs

611:

A big part of our life should be about repair. Most of us are devoted to something, feel strongly and perhaps act strongly about the most important issues in our lives. It may be care for trees, for children, for peace, or whatever. If it’s broken or harmed it’s only natural for us to want to repair it.

But however noble our repairs are, unless we find ways to enjoy the repair process itself, we won’t keep it up. Eventually the novelty will wear thin and it’ll be too much like hard work; we won’t have enough motivation to do long term repairs.

Whether we get good results or bad results, the thing we want to repair must be so important to us that to risk losing it or see it further harmed should be unbearable. But there again, whatever it is we have to do might well be satisfying in itself, dealing with it, contemplating it and working on it. Maybe it’s a hobby, maybe a fascination, maybe a cause, whatever it is, if it has a controversial element to it then nothing about it will be black or white. It will get a mixed reaction because it will affect people in totally different ways.

Certainly Animal Rights is like that, in as much as the subject (for me at any rate) is always urgent but ever fascinating. It has so many facets and implications.

Here, on the one hand, are the bad guys who do these terrible things to animals – they make a living out of it. They are probably as passionate about their livelihood as we are about ending it. There’s nothing personal about it, it’s just a difference-of-view, about something very important to all parties. The machinery of Society’s acceptance works for them, whereas for us it’s a catastrophe. But in a way there’s something bigger going on here – immediate survival and the long term future of our species. The hard working farmer, busy with thousands of captive creatures, thinks only of business and markets. For the vegan, however, it’s quite different. To me, at any rate, it is all about determining the evolution of our species’ very consciousness. For me, this whole thing of being conscious of consciousness means the human can determine what our whole species may become if we are cooperative about it. All we have to do is to get people together. A very tall order!

If this can be swung around it can be permanent. So, if we want to go off repairing on a grand scale we really have to stick with it.

That may not be quite the problem we think it is. Let’s put it this way – ‘the place of animals in human society’ is a significant subject concerning every human on the planet. Vegans think we need urgent attitude-repair on this one. So, yes, if we’re into repair on this scale, it’s best we get close to the subject itself, commit to it, and then enjoy dealing with it, on whatever level.

            By connecting personal fulfilment with practical repair work, we can make the struggle of change less painful, and we can actually enjoy the work involved. By deciding to become vegetarian we appoint ourselves repairers. Once we no longer use stuff taken from animals’ bodies we not only keep our health but we keep animals off Death Row. When we are into the liberating of animals, then almost anything we do will be primarily done for them, and that’s going to be satisfying to us on all levels.