Some thoughts on life, veganism and the world around us

Some thoughts on life, veganism and the world around us.

I've been vegan for 11 years now. 

Veganism isn't the answer to all the world's problems. It's a good place for western civilization to start finding some answers though. 

I'm more concerned with the politics of food distribution than if your Dad cooked a free range chicken last night.

I'm more concerned with the cruelties of dairy production than if my fries were fried in the same oil as a piece of chicken (although food born illnesses are never fun and this would increase my chances...).

It's not the individual chicken/pig/fish/cow's life that I care about as much as the industrialization of their lives and the industrialization of their deaths that concerns me and should concern us all. 

Pet stores are the same thing as slaughter houses. 

Zoos, circuses and water parks with animal attractions are all the same thing.
When people steal animals from their mothers and lock them away in isolation, they are destroying life, whether they want to face this fact or not.
There have been too many psychological experiments in history that have proven that animals go insane in isolation, whether they are fed or not, whether they have water or not, whether they are "loved" or not, and whether we believe they can go insane or not.
I do not believe in a god that gave man dominion over animals.
Humans are animals, sometimes the most forgetful of all animals.
We've created a world in which we've isolated ourselves from everything we depend on to live.
We've created an idea that we are the center of everything.
Natural selection no longer applies to us.
There are animals that communicate in ways humans will never understand. Yet we blindly say they don't use communication.
There are fish who communicate with electricity (Knife Fish), but we say they can't communicate.
Some animals have no sight or hearing but are more in-tune with their surroundings than we are.
Most non-human animals are more in tune with the rhythms of the Earth than we will ever understand. But we deny this and treat them like biological machines.


I recently watched a documentary about Orca whales who live at Sea World and other amusement water parks. The trainers loved them. They loved the trainers. They had beautiful relationships. The whales were/are basically slaves who perform for fish and the continued affection of the trainers, but the isolation and frustration makes them insane. And they kill people every once in a while. They are 8000- 12000 pound animals who grow to 20-25 feet long, and live in swimming pools their whole lives. But we think it's tragic when they kill people. These animals have more complex emotions and social lives than we have or can understand and we enslave them and lock them away in these swimming pools and we swim with them and then call it tragedy when one of them kills one of us.
We think we appreciate life. We cringe when we watch an animal kill another animal to eat while we enslave animals for entertainment and profit. We call Zoos educational while we learn nothing from these animals we slowly drive to insanity as every natural instinct they possess is frustrated in every waking moment they live.
While watching this movie I couldn't help but think about why we would allow these beautiful creatures to be treated the way they were/are treated. To be bought and sold, to be held captive and in isolation. But it's always money. Crowds line up and pay for tickets to come to the park to see these whales up close. To see the whales interact with people. To get splashed by these whales. The whales lives after the show don't matter. How the whales could actually be happy in the pools they live doesn't matter. Why an animal who has killed 3 people could still be used in shows doesn't matter. What matters in the end is money.
We cringe when we see the Orca kill a penguin. We cringe when we see the Orca kill a human. We don't cringe when we see the Orca jump out of the water and splash people in the stadium seating surrounding the pool, and wave on it's side to a cheering crowd of smiling children. Why? Because that's what we paid to see.

You don't have to be vegan or vegetarian or an animal rights activist to understand how wrong it is to support this kind of exploitation. Or to respect these animals enough to not give your money to the people who profit from their captivity. When I was a child my family went to the circus when it was in town a few times. We sat in the crowded arena and squinted to see the animals do the unnatural things that these shows sell us as entertainment. We ate sugary food and bought souvenirs and we stared in astonishment at the elephants. Years later my high school art class went to the zoo to draw animals, I wasn't vegan then but I didn't want to go. I didn't want to support the animals being held captive, but I went, I sat in the feeding area where an elephant was contained. There was a thick glass barrier that separated me and the elephant, and I talked to it. It might have heard me, might not have. But I sat there and watched it and talked to it. It was beautiful and i felt sorry for it. Years later I marched with a silent protest as Ringling Bros marched their elephants from the Norfolk Scope to a corner of West Ghent to force them into their traveling containers. This was the closest I've ever come to elephants. It was sad. Watching the trainers yell at them and force them to hold onto the elephant in front's tail and keep up with the elephant in front of them as the whole amoeba of huge animals/trainers and protesters moved at almost a running speed through the streets of Norfolk. Just sad. Animals can't be happy living in confinement just like we can't be happy living in confinement. How we confine humans as the ultimate punishment for crimes but think animals can be treated worse in the same situation and not lash out and kill will always amaze me.