This cutie pie that you see in the pic above is Chilly. A two years old golden Labrador that belongs to a good friend of mine, and got his name actually for being super active, playful and mad about running, and chasing all sort of wild life. Sometimes he gets scared by hedgehogs but barks at giant dogs instead, and overall he's a good soul and a joy to have him around.
I mentioned the soul in him because he, as most of the animals, have a soul of their own, have feelings, memory, a personality and quite often desires and fears. Looks like we're not the only bastards on earth getting to carry a soul into our pockets, or to be carried around by our soul's callings.
His owner became a vegetarian for about a month or so, and I being an ex one, have questioned him along the way to see how he's changed since he gave up meat, what he finds at hand when being a vegetarian, and what not. I also asked him why, and the answer was that he wanted to have a healthier diet. Not getting into digging the old controversy of being healthier or not when quitting meet because I'm not in the mood for that.
My take though is that, a lot weighing in his decision to become a vegetarian is the fact that he owns a dog for more than two years. When you have animals around you, you get to know them better, to understand them, to see them beyond flash, bones and fur. Having Chilly around him, there are high chances that he thought more often of the misery and cruelty that most of the animals that we eat, are living through, till their last breath. Some don't even see the day light in their entire life.
Animal farms are not a pleasant place to be. The ones there are born and raised to serve as a piece of meat on a plate, and they're entire life has basically no purpose other than that. I doubt that the beef one has had, came from a cow that wondered around green pastures every day until it decided to kill herself for our own bowel. Slaughterhouses are a living hell and I doubt that any pet owner would see his pet over there but, at the same time the majority of us never questions where that piece of meat that we have in a shopping cart came from, and what gave her life, before we took it, directly or indirectly.
I remember quite clear how I became a vegetarian, and it was pretty soon after I watched a couple of documentaries about slaughterhouses and animal farms, thinking at that time that probably if I quit eating meet it would make a difference. I doubt it did but, I believe most of the ones that are turning vegan or vegetarian are having pretty much the same reasoning for becoming one. They begin resonating with the soul from that flesh that's become a simple barbecue.
Some become quite fanatic though and start sabotaging all sort of animal involving businesses, express their rage all over the internet, and cut the friendship strings with anyone that doesn't see what they're seeing, and doesn't feel what they're feeling. Not a fan of such attitude and people expressing it. I believe that such a shift should happen naturally and no force should be involved.
I haven't quit meat, many years ago for almost a five year period, because someone told me to do so. I'm not the type of acting on command. I've done that because I felt so. I was disgusted and didn't felt like putting meat back in my mouth, and for a while it worked. Out of complacency I started gradually eating it again, and it's over six years since I have become a full time meat eater again. I wouldn't eat my dog if I had one though, and neither would you.
I bet that if we would all have to grow our cows, pigs and chickens, and than slaughter them after a year or so, most of the planet would be vegetarian. You simply can't look in the eyes of that animal that you fed, petted, and took care of, for that long, and make sausages out of him. We don't feel the same way about the meat that we buy from the store, because we don't have a connection with it, and we haven't been part of the whole process. If we would be, there would definitely be a whole different outcome.
I guess most of us are not vegetarian just simply out of convenience and nothing more. We got used with packed meat, we're not at the slaughterhouse when all the shitty work is being done, and that pork or beef was never our pet. That's why we don't eat our pets. We resonate with their souls, we see them as family, we give them names and understand their personalities, and we will never eat them.
A friend of mine says that the situation with plants is pretty similar but we're not that close to them so we can feel them, and that's why we feel like being vegetarian is superior to eating meat. I disagree with her, because I doubt plants feel pain and joy the same way a calf does, and I also disagree on the fact that vegetarians would be somehow superior to meat eaters. It's a matter of choice and lets not forget that Hitler was a vegetarian and he loved animals, he didn't loved Jews so much though.
What I can agree on, is the fact that animal farms could at least treat animals better, kill them with respect, that meaning that they could tranquilize them before slaughtering them, or find a less painful solution to that, and I also feel like a pig or a cow should at least deserve a normal life before ending on a restaurant plate near french fries. I doubt the whole planet would become vegan or vegetarian over night to save animals from their suffering but, at least we can treat them better. I know the lion, wolf or bear, doesn't give their prey too much option or time to enjoy life but...
...we're not animals. We're not confined to a God given dietary obligation and we could treat animals more human. That's probably what separates us from the animal kingdom. A lot more intelligence, a consciousness and sense of empathy and quite many eating options. This post was not intended as a propaganda against meat eaters, because that would be a self targeted propaganda, nor a call to become vegetarian but, a reminder to rethink the way we treat animals, and what makes one a pet and the other just dinner.
Thanks for attention,
Adrian
