Which Do You Choose?

WHICH VILLAGE DO YOU CHOOSE?

There are two villages.

In one village they raise animals for food and it is best you do not grow to love them. You will become desensitized to killing them within a short time and learn to deaden your senses to their individuality and sentience. The water, land, and air is polluted with unmanageable fecal runoff. The trees are gone – they have been cleared to make more cropland…because you need to grow a huge amount of plants to feed the animals, which in turn give back only a small amount of edible food. Thus some of the villagers are starving to death. Many also lack access to water - the shrinking amount of polluted water you have needs to be given to the farm animals and massive ‘animal feed’ crops.

In the other village you coexist with all the other earthlings. No one tries to do intentional harm to any other being in the village. Loving and supporting other earthlings is encouraged and violence is not condoned. You have small patches of gardens throughout the village that complement surrounding nature, and you produce a surplus of food for all of the residents. No one goes hungry. The water is clean and so is the air. People care about each other and look out for each other.

Which one would you choose? I know which one I want. For those who do not know facts it may seem I exaggerate. Quite the opposite, I have not mentioned many other negative issues that are a direct result of our irresponsible and irrational life choices. While veganism is not a diet, the full scope of results are undeniable.
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“To me it is deeply moving that the same food choices that give us the best chance to eliminate world hunger are also those that take the least toll on the environment, contribute the most to our long-term health, are the safest, and are also, far and away, the most compassionate towards our fellow creatures.”
~ John Robbins

I'm Awake and Feeling Great :)

Many times vegans have expressed delight and appreciation for their conscious evolution in becoming vegan, but there is always the inadequacy of words…the inability to fully express the feeling and connection.

Most of us have had the pleasure of watching a ‘feel-good’ video…maybe it was a firefighter rescuing a cat; maybe it was a dog who alerted his family of danger and saved their lives; maybe it was that video where people dug for hours to rescue the elephant from the mud pit; or untangle the turtle from the fishing net; or even a human doing a good deed for another human. When we watch the happy ending we breathe a sigh of relief and joy, and we feel emotional and a sense of fulfillment.

I was watching one such video the other day when it dawned on me…that is how I feel. It is how I feel when I wake up, when I work, when I tend my garden, when I go to bed at night. It is there. A feeling of grateful relief and happiness, of meaning and value, of feeling like an active participant in something wonderful and important.

I know some terrible things. I have seen places of nightmares. But I wouldn’t trade one bit of the awareness I carry, because there is that other part - the much stronger part - the wonder and gratitude of every moment that many of us have a hard time adequately putting to words.

I love being vegan, and will happily live vegan for the rest of my life. <3

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“I felt like I was waking up from a long sleepwalk.”
~ James Cameron

More on Irrational Thinking

Honest people don't always have tons of friends, but the ones they do have are REAL ones. However one chooses to perceive the honesty, integrity, ethics, and values I discuss and live every day of my life is merely a reflection of their own personal feelings and issues, of which I have no control. I just keep moving forward and continue to live every single day focusing on the things that make me happiest and the things that truly matter.

There are *some* people who seem to think that clearly I am suffering, sad, negative, or upset in some way because I do not dress up or accessorize with the dead corpses of others while I gorge myself on their rotting flesh and/or because I point out the moral inconsistency of others while bonding with AMAZING people to stand strong for one of the most inclusive and important social justice movements of our time.

Yeah, I’m suffering horribly…my life sucks and all I think about is sad animals and cry into my kale, which is all I've been able to find to eat for 3 weeks or so.

(that could not possibly be more untrue) ;)

If others would awaken to their own dissonance issues causing them to be unable to rationally analyze vegan ethics (e.g. THINK), they might find out how to confront their own negativity when finding themselves unable to *deal* with them.

Unavoidable Compromises

When vegans have to make compromises that are not vegan, it is not about what is 'convenient' for us, as some nonvegans might suggest. It is not about what we 'prefer', or 'desire', or about self-indulgence. Any nonvegan situation or product we are forced to tolerate or use is considered (such as needing to have a car, or riding a bus with leather seats, etc.). We do not act by impulse, ignorance, or by convenience. We simply do our best every day to do the least harm possible.

Why would I harm anyone when I could so easily avoid *most* of it? In our current society – almost totally based on exploitation and violence – most of us are unable to live all-or-nothing (e.g. we must have cars to obtain food, etc.), but we do our best.

If we find out it is not considered vegan, and is avoidable, we avoid it. It is that simple.

I feel lucky and happy for every single day, always doing my personal best to act in a way that is consistent with my ethics. It is a GREAT way to live.

THINK. vegan.

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“People look at me as a vegan and conclude that since I stepped on a snail or because the vegetables I eat resulted in a tractor death for a squirrel somewhere in Paraguay that somehow vegans are hypocrites, which of course they're not since perfection is an unattainable goal and is something to be driven towards, never actually achieved. The difference between you and the vegan standing next to you is that while you're both going to step on a bug tomorrow, they've decided to dedicate their lives to do as little harm as possible, completely independent from what you do. So in no way does the protozoan life form they step on negate your responsibility for the lamb you're paying a stranger to cut tomorrow. And falling 1% short of an unattainable goal is really good when you're standing next to someone who won't even try.”
- Shelley Williams