Imagination polishing the mirror

1673:

For those with imagination (who are also attracted to ‘isms’) vegan-ism isn’t a bad ‘ism’ to have. But we have to face both what is tempting and what is daunting about it. It’s no good pretending that it’s a bed of roses. There’s a perception out there, of veganism, that it’s a mixture of pleasure and non-pleasure.

Most of us don’t ‘do-unpleasant’, not readily anyway. We may be motivated, but not that motivated. There are plenty of 'isms' today and most of them famous for being self-punishing (today we see punishment as an all-purpose cleanser!) but this ‘ism’ has some significant saving graces.

The main thing about veganism is that there’s consistency and a certain stability in it. It’s ultimately optimistic. It gives us some achievable hope. It’s like glimpsing a golden future. So why would we walk away from it? Surely out of a sense of curiosity alone we'd poke it, to see if it’s really alive for us? And if so, what then?

Imagine: Here we find this idea, lying at the side of the road. If we poke it and it moves, do we walk on by or stay with it? If we stick around long enough, it will likely affect us, enough to move us to trial it and test it. After which, if we begin to feel a sense of satisfaction, something of it will pass into us.

As soon as we start to identify with the idea, it's likely we'll want to hit the boards with it; we can’t help showing it off, not to boast about it but to attempt to unlock people’s perceptions of it.

In the ‘doing’ and the ‘showing’, we can’t help but be affected, and what begins to shine from our daily routines becomes apparent. ‘It’ starts to show. We can’t help it being obvious - it comes out in the way we speak and how we start to live and think.