At Ease with Cheese

1835:

On the road to reaching some sort of enlightenment, if we can take what is known as a ‘spiritual path in life’, we’ll be confronted by a need to change in the face of the familiar, the comfortable and the ingrained habit.

A circumstance stops us on the road to question direction. We come to a fork in the road, etc. There’s a need for a decision to be made, not about what socks to wear but something as big as the question of our whole eating regime. Here we sit to eat every day, the table manners and eating habits are set from birth. Here we are attached to the milieu of eating and socialising over food. Here we are attached and with cravings. Then ‘bang’, there’s a moment of never-been-thought-about-before confusion. Arriving at a major moment of choice. And it is done. The decision is set.

For vegans, behind their decision-making, isn’t a random switch-of-preference of items of food. Behind it is a significant philosophical position, and our food-choosing conforms with this position.

Concerning food, before looking at the choices we make, we might have to face our own failure – asking ourselves, “Am I in the grip of an addiction, and can I shift away from it?” The magnetic hold of say, a favourite cheese, allows us to put up the fatuous question, “How can cheese be cruel?”.

This is what Animal Rights is up against!!

And this is what vegans stay firmly with – an empathy grown out of truth-seeking. And telling. For if we get a chance to tell our story it’s a red letter day. But to tell it effectively, it has to be quick. No sentimentality. Catch them while you’ve got their attention. The real value of what we get across comes later anyway, when private-mind recalls words and feelings, and analyses it all.

Going vegan is essentially a private matter. It concerns nobody else. It’s no one else’s business (unless of course they’re non-humans). Going vegan gets noticed, one way or the other. And asked about becoming vegan (“Why are you vegan?”), my own response is a celebration of courage, for anyone to dare to ask that question so the ‘red-letter-day’ thing means I intend to try to first make them laugh, NOT to make them feel guilty about animals, food, etc. On a personal level, I always hope they’ll see my disposition, making-them-think but making-them-laugh at the same time. A disposition that shows concern for the difficult position all omnivores are in, over this. Which means I have to work on it. To acquire a disposition which puts others at their ease.

But with that comes the advice: about the need to change, to “find another way”, starting by questioning things that others aren’t bothered about. Or they say they aren’t! Things which they still pretend don’t bother them, and perhaps things they’re too frightened to question. My self image might tell me I’m good and kind. I don’t want to go looking for the violent, ugly side of myself. But reality always returns me to the omnipresence of violence in our world. I think it might be pay off for getting. Getting the world we want, the one we’re used to, the one we shouldn’t risk by making any changes just for the sake of reducing our intake of violence. Like nicotine addiction, cutting down on our intercourse with violence, it’s hard to give up. In this case, with all this animal-use in our lives, it’s also hard to see that a world without violence would be a world of paradise, well almost. And tell me ‘vegan’ isn’t just that!!

‘Without-violence’ means vegan of course. It’s essential to start here. There’s no other way to put it, nor any way of not spoiling your day. This is where choice sits squarely: in our cheesey example, we know denying ourselves the pleasure of cheese is a big step. We think of the taste and textures. We think of cows, anonymous herds of them all over the place. We think of their children, snatched away. For milk. A dairy-hell for calf-bearing mothers. Cheese. Decision.

Hence the need for empathy. The need to feel change. The need to act on it. The need not to feel afraid of decision-making. And if this seems to be bothering, more bothering would be having

another disposition entirely.

Your life’s work is to plan and carry out routine abuses of sensitive and sentient beings, in order to earn your living. Your life spent making money by exploiting your neighbours on the planet. It’s so bothering because every single one of them is innocent, and being punished by the humans who do it and others who support them.

Vegans expand a sense of responsibility, raise sensibility enough to understand the reason for this level of collective carelessness. Perhaps it’s a low empathy amongst passive (and addicted) consumers. Who say, “No amount of personal development for me, nothing will interfere with my cheese. That’s my bottom line”.