Doing without

1834:

Veganism is like an eye, driven by empathy, watching day-by-day for violence-produced products and searching out the ‘clean’ stuff. This vegan eye checks, observes, but doesn’t have to judge human values. That doesn’t serve much purpose. The most useful vegan eye notes connections between benign appearances and reality. The vegan eye focuses on violence, using it as the yardstick, for keeping us clear of unethical merchandise. Primarily, away from animal food. But the eye sees below the surface, to a deeper layer, where becoming vegan means more than food and clothing. The word is, after all, just shorthand for ‘vegan principle’ which means vegans should be an embodiment of that principle. You’re not much use to animals if you’re not!!

Every consumer uses resources, and often we tread heavily on the earth. Hopefully we’re transforming into an advanced version of ourselves, from resource-grabbers to builders of sustainable systems. As  modern consumers, we are still dazzled by the trappings of a life’s which can be too much fun to start exercising a lot of self control - who knows what pleasures and opportunities you could be missing out on.

As consumers, do we care about the “long-term” consequences of being a ‘grabber’. 'Taking' has its downside. Habits and cravings form, for a start.

Vegans have to meet those same cravings and bad habits, and we have to meet this head-on, from fundamentals to practicalities. If a vegan craves something when it’s ‘no longer available’, we know we must learn to do without it. You say to yourself, “nothing as trivial as an item of food is going to break my boycott. No one can knock me of THIS perch”. Vegans have to learn to do without those things that everybody else seems to be enjoying. And to do it with a will and without stress.

Because there are so many obviously-attractive food products containing animal ingredients, there is so much off-limits for vegans. And, unless a replacement is available, we do without. We get used to that, as we do with boycotting animal-linked clothing and footwear. So many products are ‘contaminated’.

In order to avoid all this ‘dark side’, it comes down to an out-&-out exercising of self-discipline. If you can break through the temptation barriers, then you really speed-up the process of coming to know yourself and fitting into a vegan lifestyle. Of course, it’s plain sailing for anyone already there, who tells us it’s all possible and all-satisfying, when only I know my own cravings. And only I know how fulfilling being vegan might be for me.