i had an experience last week that opened my eyes to the reality of vegetarianism... i was with some friends of mine, and they had made a stew with chicken and shrimp, amongst other things. and as we sat down to eat, they started to talk about the parts of the chicken, and this or that about the demise of certain animals... without any apparent concern. now i've been a "vegetarian-by-circumstance" for awhile. i just did not eat a lot of meat. but at the same time, i didn't really care whether i did or not. it was primarily for health reasons that i ate mostly non-meat food. but for the first time... well, ever... the reality of what was happening really hit me. as i was eating this stew... in my mind, i saw visions of the animals that had died to make it. i vicariously experienced their deaths. it shocked me a bit, and it changed my mind. and so now, a few days later, i have this aversion to meat that was not there before. it came from the experience of "being" those animals that i was eating. and these things are all firsts for me. just thought i'd share that
NAMASTE Wow i am glad you posted that on here.For me being vegetarin is doing my small part to lesson the pain in the world.For others it might be just change in diet and others a deeper spiritual growth.Any i feel gives great light on all are parts to live better here on this planet.Thanks you for sharing your experience.
that was really well put. Good luck with vegoism, soon you will wonder how you ever ate meat without really realising where it came from (if that makes sense). anyway, congrats, and yey for you
A similar thing happened to me at school today. Not with the visualizing the animal and such but people talking about it with no concern. We were discussing chicken and how it's genetically modified and how they grow too fast for their legs to keep up so they just break under them or they simply can't use them, and one person said they thought it was hilarious. How is it funny to see a chicken's legs break because someone fucked it up? Some good came with that class though, we're dissecting a frog tomorrow and our teacher provided an alternative, which is for some reason not required at our school. I was very relieved.
yes, people are assholes. the majority of my friends with the exeption of one (but that kids a jackass most of the time) are all non vegetarian, and the majority of the time all they do is give me crap about it. several of them even "joke" about becoming the opposite of vegetarian and become entirely carnivorous. why this is funny i have no idea, i swear they do it just to get to me. people can be real assholes sometimes. even if they're your "friends"
Wonderful news. I had a similar experience with a goldfish . At the time he was my most beloved companion animal and it just occured to me; how could I eat fish whilst loving one so much. Then extended that mentality to include other animals. TTFN Sage
i do often wonder, but theyre the only freinds i have, they arent that bad about it all the time. that and the majority of my school and surrounding are is populated by wannabe rednecks and stupid hicks. its pretty hard to find of any approving people around here. so i really dont have much of a choice for making new freinds.
that was really well put, good luck with it!! as for the anti-vegetarians, one of my friends did something similar. i don't know if you are familiar with the maddox webpage, (http://xmission.com/~maddox) but he had an article called "sponsor a vegetarian". the basic idea was that if you had a vegetarian friend, every time they refused meat then the sponsor had to eat 3 times as much (one serving of meat for themself, one for the vegetarian, and one for good measure). so I read the article, thought it was witty, whatever, didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to actually try it... well one of my guy friends did. it got so bad that i had to stop eating anywhere close to him cuz it was so gross and annoying.
Thank you for posting. What has long annoyed me is the commercials for fast food and such, where there's litterally a song and dance without any regard for the fact that it's over the carcass of dead animal. It's like there is no recognition of what's really involved, it's just a commodity. Show the slaughter house and offer a hamburger for a $1.00 and see how many takers you get.