A buddy of mine asked me last night “What do you eat if you don’t eat meat?!!?” … This question has been heard before, and it has always fascinated me — as the people asking it are invariably intelligent folks whose neocortices have obviously been shut down when it comes to food — probably by overbearing indoctrination in their childhood and heavy cultural programming in their youth.

In this particular case, the friend asking the question has known about my vegan lifestyle for over a year, and has even asked me this same question a number of times before. It was less of a question and more of a challenge … and I responded as I always do:

*First with a pause and a smile, just enough time to let the ridiculousness of the query echo off my obviously healthy vegan body and linger a bit in the air … *Then I started listing just a few of the thousands of delicious options available to vegans that I myself (on a very limited budget & with not even a kitchen of my own) enjoy … *Then I noted offhand that a vegan diet is by far the one best suited for human health & longevity … *And finally I closed by reminding my friend that my diet isn’t about me at all; that massive injustice & disgusting cruelty is being needlessly inflicted on millions of innocent animals by meat-eaters & dairy-drinkers every day; that even if a vegan diet actually caused cancer & heart disease & diabetes & osteoporosis (instead of preventing them all, which it actually does), I would still choose to be vegan.

After all, what is the point of living a long & healthy life if you can’t look at yourself in the mirror while doing so? What is the point of living a long & healthy life if that life relies on murder & torture & the enslavement of others?

One day, every single supporter of the meat/dairy industry — every single person out there who still ingests meat &/or eggs &/or dairy products — is going to wake up to the FACT that a truly Good Life must be a life founded in Compassion, not a “life” based in pleasure or abundance or comfort … And in that moment, every single one of them is going to realize in full the immense pain & incredible suffering that their selfish choices have caused … And in that moment, every single one of them is going to suffer mightily as a consequence.

The sooner this Awakening happens, the less horrific that moment of Enlightenment will be — and the sooner those people can then start living a life of Atonement for their crimes. The sooner this Awakening occurs, to sooner these innately Kind & beautiful people can start rebuilding their lives as vegans — lives that will overflow with true Joy & deep-seated Inner Peace — lives that will be rebuilt on the values of Respect & Humility & Love, instead of violence & arrogance & greed.

Some of them, of course, will wait too long to do so — some of them will wait until their deathbed to have this Awakening …

Rest assured, my Friends, for them it will be too late … their suffering will be well-nigh eternal, and their pain will be near beyond repair.

PLEASE avoid making a similar mistake … Consider commencing with a Life of Compassion instead — and consider doing so today.

Amen … Let it be so.

“A universe is, indeed, to be pitied whose dominating inhabitants are so unconscious and so ethically embryonic that they make life a commodity, mercy a disease, and systematic massacre a pastime and a profession.” ~ J. Howard Moore

Filed under: Sanctifying Sentience by Scaughdt