Not really, but that side of my personality that doesn’t like to be bossed around (and by “side,” I mean ALL OF IT) is a little bent out of shape right now.
I’ve been putting myself out there more as a writer, and that naturally means I endure a lot more feedback on my writing. I’ve been getting plenty of abrasive comments on my articles, especially the ones I’ve been posting on Elephant Journal, which (in case you’ve been missing them) is apparently where the hyper-serious militant vegans hang out. Yesterday I posted an article called I’m a Buddhist, but my cat is a serial killer: a somewhat tongue-in-cheek but also basically earnest diatribe about how Buda (my poorly-named cat) has been busy slaughtering the songbird population in my neighborhood and shattering mommy’s already-fragile nerves.
[BTW you can read the expanded version of this post on Elephant Journal if you prefer…]
I swear I’m not trying to be provocative, but for some reason I’m a magnet for angry vegans, although the article I posted had basically nothing to do with my eating habits. Somehow they took a story about my kitty’s hunting skills and decided to apply it to my personal ethics as a conscious meat-eater. I say “conscious” because I’m actually pretty mindful of where I get my food from, whether it’s animal, vegetable or mineral. But…. I’m not a vegetarian. I was a vegetarian once. For 8 years, actually. It didn’t work for me. I feel like 8 years is enough time to figure that out.
That’s not the point though, and I am completely disinterested in getting wrapped up in yet another Twitter flame-war about the ethics of my food choices. The point is this: please don’t boss me. I don’t boss you! I don’t care what you eat! I don’t care who you voted for! I don’t care what God you worship! I don’t care how you feel about environmental policy! I really don’t!
I mean, there is a time and place for expressing your opinions in the interest of making the world a better place, and I am all for kind, compassionate education, sans rhetoric or condescension. I read Eating Animals by the brilliant Jonathan Safran Foer, every Michael Pollan book ever published, and watched most of Food Inc in utter horror. I get it. The atrocities of factory-farmed meat are plenty of incentive to go the extra mile and source your food from more ethical places. I do my best, and 90% of the food I buy is from local farmers with presumably good intentions and practices.
These are my choices. Mine. On the other hand, if my friends eat factory-farmed meat, I don’t judge them! If my friends ask me to stop at McDonalds on the way to L.A. so they can get a box of Chicken McNuggets, that’s cool! Cuz, my friends are adults! And so am I!
Sorry about all the exclamation points. I feel kinda passionate about this. Not in an “I feel passionate that it’s my way or the highway” ironically-violent-and-dogmatic-vegan kind of way; rather, in a lighten-up-cuz-life-is-hard-enough kind of way.
And I’m not saying I don’t like vegans. I think being vegan is a really awesome choice. An awesome and extremely personal choice. I love lifestyle choices made from a heartful passion, and people that actually believe in something are R.L.A.M. I know some really amazing people who are vegan. (There is one vegan on this planet who I think is a douchy tool, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that he’s vegan.) Lots of my friends are vegans, and that’s just fine with me! Is it fine with you that I’m not?
Cuz honestly, it’s none of your business what I put in my belly. And it’s none of my business what you think of me.
I’ll leave you with this Rumi poem:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.
Amen sister! Hopefully you’ve put this to rest now.
Look what Elephant Journal just posted: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/08/be-nice-or-well-kill-you/
I feel like I’m going to get beat up at recess for tattletaling.
anytime you “feel like” something bad is going to happen because of something you did, it’s because deep down inside you know it was wrong…
I love anonymous comments on my blog. They’re the best.
I love the way you write!
I thought the ‘I’m a Buddhist, but my cat is a serial killer’ was brilliant – how anyone could take offense at that is beyond me.
But in the interests of peace I think your cat aught to personally respond to any upset caused. Perhaps a video interview with Buda where he responds to accusations of cruelty. ‘He’s a cat you muppets it’s what cats’ do’ might be an alternative response.
That is hilarious. I’ll work on that. In the meantime, this is the funniest thing I’ve read all day, speaking of cats: http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/pet/1887485653.html
Maybe because it’s so close to home.
OK then, you eat what you want and that satisfies your desires, I eat vegan and that satisfies my desires, but what about the animals desires? I guess as long as your happy though, that’s all that matters.
OK then, you eat what you want and that satisfies your desires, I eat vegan and that satisfies my desires, but what about the animals desires? I guess as long as you’re happy though, that’s all that matters.
Chad, quit being a prick.
AnonymousDissenter, we should get married.
Why? because I am a prick? Because I pointed out the animals’ view? because I addressed the non-human perspective? Because I don’t subscribe to the innate superiority of the human race to all other creatures on earth? That makes me a prick? Thank you, then, because if that is what the definition of a prick is, then I will gladly be one for the rest of my life.
Chad, I think it has more to do with the tone than the idea. I understand the point, but it seemed very condescending.
Hey Chad, why don’t you go walk up to a lion and explain the zebra’s desires to it? You love animals so much that you’re mad at humans (which are also animals) for eating other animals, so by that logic, you must also be mad at every other animal that eats other animals. Guess you don’t love animals as much as you thought you did.
That’s a nice notion, however there is a fundamental difference between these two scenarios. A lion doesn’t enslave it’s prey for it’s entire life in dark warehouses, artificially breed it’s prey by the billions in order to sustain it’s enormous demands, and hire a few lions to kill all of the prey, then package it up so that everyone else can partake in it. Do you really consider that to be a natural order?