What veganism means to me

For as long as I can remember, I’ve found feeling to be very scary. In some ways, it’s easier to close myself off so I can never get hurt, but it’s a cold, lonely path of living in the shadows. So when I watch a video of a pig being killed so we can eat her flesh, it’s hard not to look away. If I allow myself, I feel pain as I watch her struggle as her throat is slit, her blood and life pouring out onto the floor, one beautiful life among thousands taken at that spot. And if I look more deeply, I feel so much sorrow thinking about her life, brought into existence by humans solely to satisfy us, living a life of total servitude for us, her life deemed by us to be less important than our desire for the taste of her flesh.

When I was young, my family stopped eating grapes after learning that workers were being sprayed with pesticides by the owners while they were out in the fields. I remember the tension in my mind every time I saw grapes at the market between wanting to eat grapes (I really liked eating grapes!) and thinking about the hidden (to me) cost to the workers being sprayed in the fields. When the cost is to another being, it’s easy to pretend it’s not that important.

Veganism is the thundering voice of conscience that doesn’t allow me to look away, that overrides the whimpering protests of my personal discomfort, that shows me my responsibility in each situation, and asks me to choose peace over violence, love over selfishness. It’s the empathy that changes my perspective from “I want grapes, but they spray the workers” to “I don’t want grapes because they spray the workers” to “How could I want grapes? They spray the workers!” And it’s the openness that allows me to once again experience the warmth and beauty of life.