Comfort

313:

In the West we live comfortably enough but many of us are confined in an attitude prison where human-centred consideration outweighs any other consideration. We trash the planet and we dominate animals ... for our own benefit. We enjoy the fruits of our exploitations. We like what civilisation has given us, but we’re compromised by comfort. We’re too soft to make any principled decisions so we don’t live in harmony with anything especially if it’s outside the human realm.
Being trapped by comfort is rather like being born into the bottom of a pit with steep, slippery sides. There’s no chance we can climb out since we’re weighed down by our addiction to pleasure and the measure of happiness it brings. If we’re happy to stay where we are or we’ve given up trying to escape we know we can still survive in a human-biased bubble in which we don’t have to think too deeply about where we are or what we’re doing, as long as it’s comfortable.
The most trapping habit is our violence-based use of Animal Industry products, mainly for food. I’m sure people would, in theory, like to be free of it, but they don’t realise how trapped they are, especially by their need for comfort food. They choose to stay with what they know.
If I get the opportunity to talk about self-improvement, talk about escape, I might get some people to listen. But for everyone listening far more prefer not to. They don’t want to be told anything which is discomforting and of course if I say anything at all about animals used for food it evokes uncomfortable feelings of guilt and squeamishness. But there’s another factor involved - where, even though some are willing to forgo a little comfort for the sake of self improvement, they don’t want to feel as though they’ve been pushed into change. If they’re going to change they’ll want to do it at their own pace.
Your regular vegan response might be, “What? Leave it to them to decide if and when? Too slow, too slow”. And if any sort of psychological pressure is applied to the reluctant-changer, they’ll dig their heels in and tell us, “There’s nothing worse than being morally blackmailed into 'self-improvement'”.
So ... do people really want to change as much as vegans would want them to change? It’s doubtful. If I start speaking to anyone about intensive farming or abattoirs I see their eyes glaze over and know I’m saying too much. At first they might seem interested but it occurs to me that they simply want to improve their life in the pit, not actually escape from it. Probably they fear landing up in the fringes (like vegans appear to have done) ... so, they don’t want to learn uncomfortable facts or make too many radical changes, especially concerning their comfort foods. They want the best of both worlds, and in the end maybe they want to preserve their free-will most of all, but it’s a no-win situation for most people, they are torn between holding back and moving forward.
Some, however, will be almost ready to move on. They’ll want to find out, but eventually they’ll see that it’s not as quick a fix as they first thought. A dilemma - they’re attracted to the idea of self improvement, even outraged by what they find out about animals and animal foods … but, all things considered, they may not like the idea of having fewer food and clothing choices. They mightn’t like the idea of so much hard work in changing so many things about their lifestyle.
Moving on may not look so attractive. The would-be vegans look about them, their health is okay, their life is okay, they don’t have to confront face-to-face animal torture, so the idea of no-change doesn’t seem so bad after all - the comforts, the social acceptability, the normality. The decision to change is put off or thrown into the too-hard basket.
When the vegan missionary leaves and the horror stories fade, they sink back into their old familiar, cushioned pit.

Boycotting wins no friends

311:

Animal rights is about introducing values unheard of before. Most omnivores haven’t even considered that animals deserve ‘the right to a life’. Vegans, busy pursuing their own sense of responsibility, leave their friends behind. Their omnivore friends, more self-protective, aren’t as interested in developing a new value system. But, knowing today what they know, they are faced with a moral dilemma. They can’t convince themselves that what vegans are saying is not true.
Some animals are well known to be exploited - the hen, laying battery eggs in a cage; the chimpanzee, going insane in a science lab; the breeding sow, held in an ‘iron maiden’ sow stall; the dairy cow, turned into a milk-making machine. Today we know things about animal cruelty that weren’t widely known about forty years ago, and most people are distressed when they do get to know about it. But how strange, it doesn’t seem to change their eating habits. Perhaps this shows just how strong the impulse is, to not alter our food regime unless it’s to our own advantage, or not to choose a lifestyle which will separate us from others. But the more we learn the harder it is to be comfortable about our choices.
The whole idea that vegans are putting forward highlights this dilemma. We seem to inflict guilt just by bringing up animal issues ... which is why most people want to avoid us.
So we vegans might be lonely because we’re avoided and lonely because we deliberately disassociate from the lifestyle shared by almost everyone else - we not only boycott many products sold in shops (to our own considerable inconvenience) but boycott social events like barbeques, dinner parties and restaurants, and for this we’re likely to be disliked ... which is why we need to find a way of dealing with this loneliness and vilification.
We all suffer (the omnivore from guilt and chronic illnesses, the vegan from alienation) but for us there are special advantages - it’s great that we’re into self-improvement, great that we stand up to the hypocrisy in Society ... but we have to take into account our need for other people. And this comes down to our approach and how we advocate for animals - how do we advocate strenuously whilst not necessarily going on the attack, how we remain friendly with those we’d much rather be in judgement of.
The big question for us is surely how we stay emotionally neutral and not feel depressed when the people we know avoid us or avoid talking about this subject?

Ah, but the loneliness!!

309:

What’s it like being an animal activist, someone who wants animals to have a life but whose words fall on deaf ears? With almost everyone chomping away on their meat and various animal secretions nobody seems to be listening. No one is interested in anyone who seems to be denying them their pleasures.
As vegans, we know how it feels to be alone but perhaps it’s essential, because it lets us empathise more closely with animals. It helps us not to forget that domesticated animals are not only alone but at the mercy of violent humans. It’s no consolation though, for us personally, when we realise the apathy and silence of most people around us. I can’t help seeing this hardness of outlook, even in dear friends. I can see them desperately trying to shield themselves from taking a ‘soft’ view. They’re harder than I want them to be or even they want to be. They won’t communicate with their soft side for fear of what they might become.
I want to be an advocate for animals but I do want to feel close to my friends. However, at this point in time, it seems one must be sacrificed for the other. The louder I speak up the sooner my friends seem to turn off and walk away.
I don’t underestimate the pain of being marginalised. I know it could be dangerous to feel so alone. It may drive me crazy but I also know that, more dangerously, my need for acceptance might tempt me back to my old idiot-ways.
I have to tell myself that if I’m serious about ‘the greater good’ I have to find ways of NOT feeling alone and not feeling that it’s all pointless. It helps to know other vegans, it helps perhaps to meet up with a whole bunch of animal rights activists on a Tuesday night. But in reality, we all live apart. We’re on our own. This is one big personal challenge for most vegans - not in the changing of our diet but the facing up to a diminished social life and a shortage of simpatico companions.

Style

307:

My conscience may call on morality, but it’s not its only driving force and I’m not keen on the idea of morality when it has so much ugly association with god botherers and goodness-preachers. I’d like my conscience to take a constructive path and avoid the bad and insincere as one would avoid foul-smelling air, but I’m aware that ‘being good’ is still very much about brownie points, which I haven’t any interest in – ideally, my truth pie has to have ingredients like panache and style.
In a vegan lifestyle I see a smoother operation - the body itself is usually functioning in top form simply because it isn’t being daily poisoned by animal stuff. I feel that my mind too is inspired by the sophisticated idea of it rather than the dull focusing on bald goodness or sensible healthiness. I don’t want to just ‘do right’ but do right things more easily. I’m happier being in a more gentle relationship with my environment. It’s most proved for me when everything that can respond back does so, positively and in a gentler style.
Vegan lifestyle is stepping beyond the tempting world of commodities in order to become free to develop a number of things, not the least of which is style ... and that comes with sensitive thinking and sensitive attitudes. I notice it in myself, when I’m not for ever tripping over guilt and grubby attitudes, especially those which regularly concern favourite foods made by the animal-death-industry. For me personally, as a vegan, this is the really great advantage of my lifestyle - but I admit that it’s frustrating that I can’t say this without sounding ‘up’ myself.
When I’m advocating for animals I’m also hoping to set ‘style’. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not rubbishing a bit of old fashioned morality, it’s just that I like to think morality is a stepping stone to more interesting things. Morality is a good reference point, like having rules when you’re playing a sport. Then it’s a matter of honesty. The honourable sports-player plays a straight game and enjoys playing by the rules. The problem, as I see it, with evangelical preachers preaching unvarnished morality is that they always kill the enjoyment. They have to make pleasure sinful, and in terms of vegan principle if it’s made into a strictness it certainly loses its attractiveness.
Morality, ethical upbringing, values, they’re guides, pointing out the right direction, but we’re heading towards more sophisticated ways of living and decision-making these days . “Thou shalt not eat meat” isn’t inspiring, whereas “Lighten up - be vegan” seems to be worth investigating. It’s more attractive and just as moral.

Experiments in imagination

305:

Imagine what it would be like to ‘go vegan’, trying to give things up but always finding it to be an effort - if it was like that we’d surely, eventually feel like giving up and going back to easier ways.
But isn’t that the characteristic of any experiment – finding out whether it is worth putting in the effort and going on, in order to eventually reach a time when it’s no longer such an effort? Once over that hurdle then experiments become all-interesting. I suppose all people want to get to that stage. when they start out on any discipline.
I remember when I first contemplated veganism I’d ask myself if expending the initial energy (to get over the inertia) was worth it. But there’s a double hurdle for vegans, because there’s a huge weight of opinion set against us, trying to drag us back to convention. Vegans are in danger of being scuppered not only by a lack of support, not only by others’ inaction but by open hindrance.
In an ideal world we’d be simply pioneering, setting an example and others inevitably following - ‘vegans doing the right thing’, others alongside lightening the load. But that certainly isn’t the case for most of us, not right now anyway.
So, to break this cycle, to turn things around, to be experimenting rather than always watching one’s back, I found it best to approach this great lifestyle change as if I were forging my own philosophy. I was conducting a big experiment in order to feel a more exciting and effective energy flowing through me. I felt as if I were letting imagination play a part in linking self development with self discipline.
By going vegan I discovered my own potential for jumping the hurdles, for ‘making the effort’, without having to first be certain of anything - it was being done in the true spirit of experimenting, by not needing outside help to confirm my decisions or to keep me on track.

Imaginary companions

301:

The struggle to stand firm in the face of temptation isn’t merely one of disciplined decision-making but in finding a reason to be disciplined. For me, this reasoning is based upon the prioritising of issues in my own mind, where I sort out what is the most urgent thing needing my attention ... concerning the major issues of the day. I’m for ever asking myself “What am I going to do about it?”
Animal Rights figures large. Is it my own claustrophobia or my empathy with innocent little creatures that leads me to want to defend imprisoned animals? Whatever it is, it’s very clear and strong and urgent, leading me to boycott anything to do with cruelty to animals. If I’m going to do anything, I want to be effective and I don’t want to fail at it, so it’s a toss-up between making a big gesture (going vegan) and going in so hard that I risk not being able to continue with it.
When I ‘went vegan’, perhaps I feared it would inevitably drive me crazy, craving all these ‘prohibited’ things and not allowing myself any of them.
People often ask me if I’m “allowed to eat” certain things and I always say, “I can eat what I like. It’s my own choice. There’s no authority watching over me”. I’m sure other vegans get asked that a lot too. But to be able to say that you’re ‘a vegan’ you have to actually be it and stay it.
I know that I stay vegan by tapping into my sense of purpose and vision of a future in harmony with animals. But I stay vegan for other reasons. Now, this might sound a bit weird but it’s the best I can come up with. I like to think I have the ‘little people’ living on my shoulders … whispering in my ear … suggesting great possibilities and telling me things I can do. Now that I’m ‘clean’ (i.e. vegan), I can afford to hear them. I can use my imagination. And I know others can’t, not in the same way, if only because that can’t afford to hear ... most of them being omnivores or worse. They can’t go around condemning an abusive world because they’re condoning it. They’re caught up in it. They haven’t contemplated going vegan. They still think it’s absurd. They couldn’t even allow ‘such absurdity’ to enter their heads. They opt to stay where they’ve always been.
These omnivores love their animal products and tell anyone they know who is vegan “You don’t know what you’re missing”. But we know they can’t hear the ‘little people’ (and would think me quite mad if I were to mention them).
For me, it would be these ‘little people’ who do a lot of the difficult work for me - they suggest I take notice of things I could easily have missed. They alert my conscience when I’m in danger of doing something I don’t need to. I imagine ‘the little people’ as coming from another world, directly accessible through my conscience. Once my conscience is fired up it’s a bit like tuning into a radio station - I find ‘them’ and use ‘them’ and listen to ‘them’.
Whether you acknowledge such things or not, you’d probably agree that the whole matter of ‘the unknown’ interests most people. We’re all attracted to the unknown, ‘the possible-though-seemingly-improbable’. There’s nothing I like better than peering into the unknowable future, and in preparation projecting anything which might benefit our children’s’ generation and their welfare. The unknowable tempts me away from conforming to convention. The rationale here is, I suppose, that since conventional ways have gotten us into today’s mess, the opposite may well get us out of it.
Imagine this if you will: the world is dying from unimaginativeness. So, I like to cultivate imagination. Un-imaginative the ‘little people’ are not, indeed I think they embody imagination and have an overwhelming impulse to guide us by way of it. But they’re rough teachers, their guidance is full of fun and mischief, tripping me up when I get above myself, pushing me beyond my comfort zone, working for my best interests but they’re ever-ready to do ‘mischief’ if I ever drop my guard. I imagine them as elders, tough in order to keep standards high.
As I walk barefoot along a safe, sandy beach feeling rather self-important, I stub my toe on a rock. I’m angry. I’m cursing the bastards who made me do it ... but it’s only the ‘little people’, squatting on my shoulder, reminding me, sometimes painfully, not to get carried away with thoughts of self importance.
Imagining them into existence is similar to imagining ideas into reality. Learning from the ‘little people’ is like watching ideas grow until they’re independent of imagination.
Stubbing my toe on a rock I see the need for change, for growth in myself. Change needs exhilarating bursts of fresh energy. If change is too slow it will whimper along, never building up enough momentum, always held back by mistake after mistake. If I relax too often I’ll be constantly clobbered by the ‘little people’. They’ll scream with mischievous delight whenever I’m being idle or showing no gratitude for what’s on offer. When I’m not looking they’ll lay a rock in front of me, to stub my toe on.

The power of food

298:

What the Animal Industries may NOT realise is that a strong counter-culture is gaining ground. People are beginning to wake up to the fact that animal products are dangerous as well as immoral. We know food is obviously essential to life … but not this food. If animal-derived foods are anything, they’re toxic and unethical and detrimental to the environment, and yet almost everyone remains an omnivore. They’re seduced by roast dinners, egg and bacon breakfasts or after-dinner ice cream. They can’t walk past a cake shop without paying a visit.
We can’t get past our own tastebuds and food-tastes. We’re hemmed in by our social eating habits. If we go against eating norms then social relationships are affected, whereas if we eat from the same table we’re accepted.
For people like vegans social isolation is a potent punishment, simply because we eat different food. Perhaps people think we are trying to be better than everyone else. Whether that’s fair or not it happens that way ... but it shouldn’t make any vegan feel insecure or depressed, after all we’ve looked carefully at our own habits and decided to make changes which go against majority opinion. We boycott products and condemn the industries who make their business out of animal exploitation ... and most of us are thankful we’ve gone vegan despite the struggle. One might argue that some life-struggle is good for us, since it develops appreciation for what we have, contributing to a strength in our personality with which we’ll have no trouble attracting people towards us … and eventually towards our ideas. We develop a personality that seems unique and sovereign, and which acknowledges others’ sovereign right to a life. We recognise the unique individual in each other, who is worth something in their own right. If that does nothing else for us it should give us self confidence, enough perhaps to combat the social isolation that being vegan brings. It helps us lead the fashion and not follow it. It says to us, “Yes, go ahead, boycott, do what is necessary and right, and don’t back off when things get rough”. And this is the same confidence that says “no” when we’re tempted.
If that strength of character is a bit lacking in our world, and if people do keep giving in to exactly what the brain-washers have programmed us to want, then our biggest problems are ones concerning conformity. If we are giving in to social pressure to be the same as others we have to consciously go against our better judgement, our wanting to stand firm. And that, perhaps more than anything else, erodes self esteem and self-confidence, proving that we haven’t been able to stand up to the power of food.