1699:
When I considered becoming an animal
activist, I soon enough also became a vegan. I knew that would involve me in
much more than just avoiding meat and dairy. I’d experience shortages and
unavailabilities. I’d be cutting myself off from ‘normal food’ and therefore
seeming to be NOT normal. I’d have to get used to doing without; there’d be no
more cheese, no more cakes from the cake shop, no more honey, quiche, waffles,
and the list goes on. No more being-invited out to dinner because of the
complications of catering my eating requirements. No more discussion of food
with people because talking about all this leads inevitably to animal issues.
But this isn’t ever solely about food or our
social lives. There are other important principles at stake worth perhaps more
than losing friends and missing out on favourite foods. Mostly, amongst us
there's a wish to tread more lightly on the earth, to better appreciate things
around us, to be kinder members of our world. We need to somehow transform ourselves
from clod-hopping brutes to more sensitive, gentler adults.
We each face a simple choice: we can either
carry on grabbing whatever we crave or become more circumspect and use a bit of
self control, and then see if we can keep it up. This is the aim of becoming
less attached to things, less nailed down, less concerned about doing-without.
The bigger picture involves
not only becoming less tempted, but being more in tune with the prospect of
some important transforming principles. One can see that these same principles
can transform not only our selves but our species. (And I would say that the
human species is in dire need of transformation if it is not to die an
ignominious death of its own making). Practising 'being vegan' is the start of
something big. It isn't attempting
perfection or seeking enlightenment or taking a ‘spiritual path in life’, but
rather about experimenting with what appear at first as 'maybe-truths and
bringing them ínto fuller consciousness as full-blown truths.
Life is a laboratory where we learn about
getting used to change, embracing, not fearing it, even if we see it as a need
for radical change. This isn't about changing for the sake of it but taking up
change in response to circumstances which demand it. Embarking on a course of
radical change - does it have to be a hard slog or can we enjoy it? Or at least
be at ease with it? By getting used to change we can keep alive a questioning
of those things which others seem un-bothered about.
For me, then and now, the most bothering
thing I can think of is the routine abuse of sensitive and sentient beings,
particularly farm-animals. Abusing animals who can't fight back seems to me and
many others to be both cowardly and weak. The situation regarding farm animals,
animals being used solely for the purpose of providing us with food and
clothing, is simply an example of social injustice. It is such a monumental
example because there are so many who
are so innocent and who are being so badly abused. Our main aim must be
therefore to better understand why our fellow human beings are so careless
about animals, why there is such a lack of empathy for non-humans when in every
other way it seems to be a natural part of human nature. There are so many
examples of humans knowing how to treat their nearest and dearest with love and
affection. So why should it be different when dealing with Nature - in this
case with those aspects of Nature deemed useful to humans - the animals
and the environment?
No comments:
Post a Comment