Secondly, on not such a happy note, I want to talk about my vegetarianism. I know, there are certain things I just harp on, and this is one. Yep, I'm doing it again. For years I intentionally stayed away from being sort of self righteous about not eating animal. But it seems that the more people actually know about what they're eating, they go one of two ways; they usually lose their appetite for animals, or they defend their desire to still eat meat without feeling bad, to the hilt.
“I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out an inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made. (I have often felt that my vegetarianism matters more to such people than it does to me.)”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
I remember when I was just a little girl, sitting at our family table, looking at the roast my mother put before us. It was dinner. I saw dead animal. I don't know exactly how I finally erased the thought of the truth that I was eating what once was a living creature, an animal, but I managed to get that thought out of my mind.
I love those moments in life when you have this amazing moment of realization...a revelation....a type of waking up. That type of moment happened to me twenty five years ago this year. I had been really sick and wasn't able to eat for a week. As my appetite rapidly returned, I told my husband how hungry I was. We had a grocery store not too far from us where you could buy fried chicken. He told me he would run over there and and buy us an easy dinner of..yes, fried chicken. That evening, as I looked at the dead bird I intended to eat, I looked at it and saw veins, muscle, flesh and blood. It seemed as though this voice that had been in me for a long time, but only spoke just then, said something....something loud and clear, that resonated in my whole being, had this message: "You don't have to eat that. Your mother isn't here to make you eat your meat. You're an adult now." And that was it.
I haven't had meat since then, and I seriously do not miss it. I didn't become a vegetarian for any sort of health reason. I became a vegetarian because I knew what I didn't want to do,and that was, eat an animal. I also pictured exactly what the animal looked like before it was slaughtered.Most of all, I wondered what it would be like to be the animal, knowing I would be slaughtered. I realized that I was eating something that probably didn't want to die so that I could indulge in it's flesh.
At first I was almost shy about letting others know of my decision. Yet at the same time, there was this sort of peaceful feeling that I had been true to my real self. Not the self that is conditioned by culture and society. But I really didn't want to appear self righteous around all of my meat eating friends. I don't think I actually knew another vegetarian back then. When I told others I didn't eat meat, they most always had this sort of speech that it's fine, as long as I don't impose my "tastes" on them. And then of course, they proceeded to tell how there are some "arrogant, self righteous" vegetarians "out there".
Fast forward twenty five years. I've changed a lot! I'm more eccentric about my love for animals to the point where I admit to liking them more than people. I'm not embarrassed to tell that truth. As a matter of fact, if someone has a problem with MY vegetarianism..I realize it's not me, but their own self, who has the problem. AND their problem is usually that they really don't want to think of meat as an animal, or at least they don't want to see, feel, hear the cries of how that animal was killed.
The thing about me is that I idealistically want people to see life the way I do. (Well, at least I admit it!) Espeically when it has to do with animals. Animals have been faithful and loving to me without exception, why shouldn't I love them so? It's difficult for me to express the way I really feel. Words don't come easy for me so I'll close with this video, which says it all!
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