Fearless

1270: 

The world’s at a funny stage at the moment.  There’s so much openness to so many issues and yet, over some matters, there are still too many questions left un-asked.  For instance, how is it that some of us are passionate advocates for animals and others are indifferent or even hostile?  

The fact is that our differences are specific and not general.  Vegans are probably not that much brighter or kinder or healthier than anyone else, but we do have something to say and a determination to say it. And we show we mean business by demonstrating, by way of self discipline, that we fearless.  We practise this fearlessness daily by regularly standing up for our principles and doing something difficult - we boycott.  We do without many of the things others can't imagine doing without; we face up to some very difficult ethical issues.  

We’re used to questioning and arguing our case.  This probably makes us somewhat frightening to our opponents, and if I’m right about this, then it follows that our adversaries might feel nervous around us.  They might feel cornered when we start speaking about animals, so we don’t need to wind them up.  

So before we even get to base one, where they're listening to what we have to say, we should be trying to allay their fear of hearing what they think they don't want to hear.