When I was a kid in history class, and I was learning about some atrocity from the past, like slavery or the Holocaust, I remember always thinking, how could this happen? How could so many people allow this to happen?

And then naturally the next question, would I have been any different?
The odds are that I wouldn’t. 

Of course I’d like to believe this isn’t true. That of course I wouldn’t simply follow the masses. I’d be the one to speak up. The one with the courage to be unpopular. To fight for what’s right.

But I probably wouldn’t be this person. If history has taught us anything, most people are not the kind to speak up. The vast majority of us are blind to the atrocities of our time.

Or if not entirely blind to them, then we’re too afraid to self reflect. To implicate ourselves in such horrors. 

Or maybe we’re just too afraid to challenge the status quo, and to bear the consequences of doing so.

At least when we look to the past we can see things more clearly. We can call a spade a spade. But certainly even this can be a challenge sometimes.

And then even more difficult, acknowledging the horrors of the present. How many terrible things have we normalized as a society? And what will future generations think of us when they learn our history?

What am I blind to?

The tyranny of humans over nonhumans really is the “moral blindspot” of our time. How can such brutality exist with so little opposition? If people were to learn that I confined my dog to a cage every day, that I mutilated her body, slaughtered her and ate her flesh, people would be horrified. They’d call me sadistic. And yet every year, so much worse is done to the trillions of animals tortured in factory farms, laboratories, and fishing operations.

Despite this horrifying scale of harm, the issue receives very little attention. Worse, some people actually try to justify this cruelty. There is no justification for what we do to these animals.

Every year, trillions of fish sucked from the oceans, left to slowly suffocate. Billions of chickens, pigs, & cows, crammed into claustrophobic cages, tortured, mutilated, and slaughtered. Millions of rabbits & mice, abused, dissected, and disfigured. What kind of society allows this? Where is the outrage?

Unfortunately for these individuals, animal exploitation remains the state of affairs. I hope by the end of my lifetime this is no longer the case. I hope I live to see the day when the factory farms, the animal laboratories, the fishing, fur, & leather industries, they all crumble.

I think that day is coming. The animal movement will grow & work its way into the mainstream. We will put an end to this systematic abuse, to this needless brutality.

Please join us. This movement needs everyone. Together we can create a world where cruelty & violence are no longer the norm.

As I write this, close to 700 million humans are living in extreme poverty. I’m sure they suffer so much. It must be so awful to lack food, water, shelter, and healthcare. And there are also millions of humans who, despite having their physical needs met, still experience intense psychological suffering.

And there are billions of animals on factory farms being tortured & slaughtered. There are millions of mice being dissected & disfigured. There are trillions of fish being slowly suffocated. This is incomprehensibly awful.

There are trillions more wild animals dying from hunger & thirst, being eaten alive by predators, suffering from injury & disease. This is again, too much to fathom.

There is so much suffering. So many unbearably painful experiences being had at this very moment. It’s so sad.

Of course, there are also many positive experiences being had. Some people are falling in love, eating delicious food, making friends, laughing. It would be a tragedy to rob these individuals of their experiences.

But honestly, I feel like it’s not enough to tip the scales. If I had to make a choice between:

1. Leave everything as it is
2. Painlessly destroy everything

I feel like it would be better to destroy everything. For the sake of those who are suffering. Because when I imagine myself as the factory farmed pig having his testicles ripped off, or the gazelle being eaten alive by the lion, or the fish, slowly suffocating, all I can think is… surely nonexistence is better than this? Than this intense agony?

But thankfully, my choices are not limited to this binary. I can choose to help others. To make things better. I should probably spend the rest of my life trying to do that. If I was a suffocating fish, I’d certainly want someone to do that for me.

To discriminate is to treat someone unfairly. People discriminate against others based on all kinds of traits. To name a few: race, sex, age, class, able-bodiedness, height, perceived attractiveness, species, and generation. None of these traits should be an indicator of how to treat someone. That is to say, they are not morally relevant.

Our society has done a pretty good job at condemning some forms of discrimination. For example, discrimination on the basis of race is highly stigmatized, and people are terrified of being labeled a racist. That’s good. Our social norms should deter racial discrimination.

But for other forms of discrimination, our society is yet to condemn them as strongly. For example, discrimination on the basis of disability is not nearly as stigmatized. Certainly, most of us would prefer not to be labeled an ableist. But still, ableism lacks the same degree of stigma & shame we associate with racism.

And for other forms of discrimination, they’re yet to be condemned at all, except maybe at the outermost margins of society. Speciesism, for example. Few people have even heard of this concept, and even fewer take it seriously. But just like race & sex, species membership isn’t a valid reason to discriminate. Torturing a pig is no more justified than torturing a dog. They both suffer the same. It’s super important we actively oppose this bias, because there are billions of animals being tortured on factory farms right now, and their suffering matters no less simply because they’re cows & pigs, instead of cats & dogs.

Likewise, I think discrimination on the basis of perceived attractiveness deserves a lot more attention than it receives. I think this might actually be one of the most problematic forms of discrimination. If a person is perceived to be attractive, they’re more likely to win political elections, to get hired, to be taken seriously, to receive attention. From everyday social interactions to important life decisions, “attractive” people receive preferential treatment. That’s super unfair. We should do our best to change this.

Similarly, I think discrimination based on generation is a very neglected bias. We consistently preference current generations over future generations. This is wrong, because future humans are capable of suffering just as much as current humans. This bias is evidenced by global warming, the depletion of earth’s resources, and the contamination of our air, water, & soil. We understand future humans will suffer greatly from these environmental damages, and yet we do nothing. I worry that if we don’t aggressively oppose this bias, our civilization will collapse.

To conclude, there are many forms of discrimination, and they’re all very bad. Prejudice should be abolished in all forms. While society has certainly progressed in some respects, many blind spots remain, and there is lots of work to be done.

Below is a table with the different forms of discrimination I could think of. I categorize them as either “unacceptable”, “tolerable”, or “normalized”, based on how I believe society perceives them.

Discrimination on the Basis of	Normalized	Tolerable	Unacceptable
Race			x
Sex			x
Sexuality		x
Class		x
Able-Bodiedness	x
Nationality	x
Age	x
Height	x
Weight	x
Perceived Attractiveness	x
Perceived Intelligence	x
Political Affiliation	x
Species	x
Generation	x

I hope in the future, all these prejudices fall under the category of “unacceptable”. I hope we stop using morally irrelevant traits to make moral judgments. I hope everyone gets treated fairly.

Sometimes animal advocates are described as “sentimental”, “emotional”, or simply “animal lovers”. And certainly many advocates do have a strong fondness for animals, but it must be stressed that animal liberation is not a matter of sympathy, it is a matter of justice.

You don’t have to be an “animal lover” to realize the great unfairness of their situation. Imagine being brought into this world, having done nothing, only to be torn from your mother, kept in isolation & confinement, deprived of exercise, of the outdoors, of adequate food & water. Imagine being tortured your entire life, only to be shipped to a slaughterhouse to become someone else’s dinner. Imagine the only life you ever know being the pain & misery of the factory farm. Please imagine, just for a second, what it’s like to be them.

That humanity has abused its intellect & strength to oppress the more vulnerable creatures of this earth is an injustice beyond words. This has to end. We can be so much better.

I feel like the ability to feel what others are feeling is perhaps the most remarkable ability we possess.

Empathy helps me deal with a lot of negative emotions. When I’m angry with someone, or a group of people, I try to use empathy to understand these others. This usually helps me relax. I think most people really are trying to do the best they can.

When I’m socially anxious, I try to use empathy to understand that everyone else is just as wrapped up in their own thoughts. I try to remember that just as I am the main character of my life, they are the main character of theirs.

I think empathy is also the key to my relationships. Taking the time to understand how someone feels, why they feel that way, it makes me kinder, more considerate. Empathy reminds me to ask people how they’re feeling, what they’re passionate about, what they ate for breakfast.

Unfortunately, I’ve realized I apply this remarkable ability, empathy, rather inconsistently. Instinctively, I feel more empathy for people I know, for people who look like me, who share similar backgrounds, who believe the same things. I give more consideration to these people.

I think that’s really bad, it’s unjustifiable. These characteristics, familiarity & similarity, they shouldn’t really matter. If somebody needs help, and I’m in a position to help, then I should help. I shouldn’t preference the people I know or the people I resemble. Everyone is equally deserving of my empathy, I should apply it indiscriminately.

The needs of my friends & family are no more important than the needs of strangers. And the needs of my own race, my own nation, my own species, they’re no more important than the needs of other races, other nations, other species. Equal interests deserve equal consideration.

I think this principle makes sense, but it’s hard to actually live by it, because it’s not always intuitive. Living by this principle requires effort & reflection. I don’t always take the time to do that.

Occasionally, I try slowing down and exercising my empathy more deliberately. What’s it like to be homeless? To be cold, hungry, & vulnerable, to be constantly glanced over, to beg thousands of strangers for help, most of them unwilling. What’s it like to live amidst violence & warfare? For bullets & bombs to become the soundtrack of your daily life. What’s it like to not look like everyone else? To feel like you stand out everywhere you go, to get stares, to feel unwelcome. What’s it like to be a farmed animal? To be locked in a cage your whole life, to be starved, beaten, & raped, to be utterly defenseless. What’s it like to be a wild animal? To have to live in constant fear of being eaten alive, of freezing, of starving to death.

There’s so much suffering in this world and I am ignorant to so much of it. Having the time to reflect on the suffering of others is a luxury in itself. 

I’m so grateful to be free of all these hardships. And I’m so grateful to be able to empathize with the individuals forced to endure these hardships. Without empathy, I would have no inclination to help.

If I could have a superpower, it would be perfect & unlimited empathy. To be able to escape the confines of my perspective, to perfectly understand what others are thinking & feeling. Since I don’t have this power, I’ll just have to settle for dialogue and my imperfect reflections. How are you feeling? How can I help? If I was you, what would I want me to do?

I hope one day we live in a world where everyone exercises empathy to its fullest extent. I hope we have designated times, spaces, holidays, and classes, dedicated to dialogue, dedicated to the reflection of what it’s like to be someone else. I hope we develop technology to help us better understand one another. I hope we use our intellect & our empathy to one day construct a world where everyone is able to live comfortably & happily. Where everyone flourishes.

The things I hide, because I’m afraid if I show them to people, they’ll no longer accept me. I have a solid handful of insecurities. I’m insecure about my thinning hair, that my body shape is unattractive, that I’m not masculine enough, not confident enough, not assertive enough. I’m insecure about my personality. I’m afraid that if I show people too much of who I am, they’ll find me annoying, and they’ll no longer like me. I’m insecure about my body hair, that I have too much of it, and in the wrong places. I’m insecure because I come from a super wealthy & “successful” family, my mom is a doctor and my dad is a lawyer. I’ve been so lucky, so privileged, since the day I was born, and sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve the things I have, or to belong in the places I’m at. I’m afraid that I’m selfish, that I don’t do enough to help others in a world that contains so much suffering. I’m insecure because I’m 22 and I’ve never had sex, and I’m afraid that means there’s something wrong with me. I’m afraid to have sex because I’m afraid my partner won’t find me desirable, or that I won’t be good at it. I’m afraid to flirt with white girls because I assume they’ll find me unattractive because I’m Indian. I’m afraid I’ll never find someone to be wholly myself with, sexually & emotionally & intellectually. I’m insecure because I’m a hypocrite and I don’t always act according to my values. I’m afraid that the positive image I have of myself is a false image I created as a means to survive. I’m afraid that I’m out of touch with reality and that I don’t allow myself to see my faults because, if I did, I wouldn’t be able to live with them. I’m afraid to tell people I’m vegan because they’ll dislike me for this label. I’m afraid to tell people some of my philosophical & political views because it might make them think I’m crazy. I’m afraid to tell people how much I love them because I might make them uncomfortable and they might not feel the same way. Particularly I’m afraid to express love for my male friends, because they might not know how to take it, or one of our other friends might see me expressing affection and they’ll make a joke about how I’m gay, and then everyone will laugh, and I’ll be afraid to show love like that again.

I don’t fully believe all of these thoughts, but I don’t fully disbelieve all of them either. Some of them I believe more than I disbelieve, some I disbelieve more than I believe. My insecurities often depend on my mood, they come and go like waves.

Should I be insecure? I don’t think so honestly. It’s certainly true that at least some people would find me unattractive, or dislikable, or crazy for the things I mentioned above. But I think for the most part, my friends & family would love me for all of me. I know I would do that for them at least. I would do that for a stranger too.

I would like to say that the people who judge me for my insecurities are not the kinds of people I want to associate with, but that’s not even true honestly. I want everyone to like me, I seek approval from everybody. Unfortunately, I probably care about my social image more than almost anything else. I guess my mind was wired for that. It’s so terribly difficult for me to convince myself to not care about what others think. I want to fully express myself, and sometimes I do, but many times I don’t, because I’m afraid.

I guess that’s what’s at the core of all my insecurities. The desire to be loved & accepted. It’s such a strong desire. I crave it probably more than anything else. But honestly, when I do think about it, I think people would probably like me more, and not less, if I were to be more genuine. At least when I see others expressing themselves, particularly in unpopular ways, all I can do is feel a deep sense of respect & admiration for these individuals. To possess the courage & security to be vulnerable, to defy social norms, it’s such a beautiful thing. I want to be like these people. To express love & confidence & authenticity in everything I do.

It’s hard to be that type of person, but I think I’ve gotten better at it. I think like everything, authenticity is something you can practice. A skill you can exercise. I’m going to keep trying to get better. Maybe tomorrow I’ll dance in the street, probably not though that shit is scary.

I hope everyone reading this can find the courage to be themselves too. I think everyone deserves to be loved for who they are.

            Lately I’ve been reflecting on why I don’t do more good things. I’m in good health, I have lots of free time, and I’m financially stable. I live a very privileged life.

            At the same time, I am aware that there are millions of people & other animals that are deeply suffering at this very moment. This is true at any given instant, but the Coronavirus pandemic has made me contemplate it more than ever before. As I comfortably sit at my kitchen counter, people all around the world are lacking their basic needs.

My heart breaks for the millions of daily wage earners in India, people who depend on their day’s earnings to afford food to eat & a place to sleep. These people were left jobless by India’s three-week lockdown. I can’t imagine what that’s like. On a global scale, the World Bank has estimated that the pandemic will push 60 million people into extreme poverty, along with the 700 million others already living in these conditions.

I believe there are things that I could do to help alleviate this suffering, but I don’t do these things very often. Why don’t I donate more of my time, money, & energy so that I can help these people? Why don’t I do more good things?

            It could be because I don’t care. But I’m pretty sure that I do care, and that I actually care quite deeply. Because whenever I see other lifeforms suffering, I start feeling very sad and begin to cry.

            Maybe I don’t do more good things because I don’t have the time & money. But the more I think about this justification, the more bullshit it appears to be. I tell myself, “I’ll be a better person later in life, when I have more time & money.” But when I actually think about this, I realize that at this very moment, I already have lots of time & money to spare.

            If I don’t have time to spare, then why does my screentime app tell me that I’ve been on my phone for an average of 5 hours a day during the past week? This isn’t even accounting for all the other ways I use my time when I could be doing good things.

            If I don’t have money to spare, then why do I eat out so often? Why do I buy clothes I don’t need? Why do I attend expensive concerts? Why do I spend so much money on nonessentials? If, instead of spending money on nonessential items, I donated this money to charity, I would have donated lots of money to charity by now. But I have not donated lots of money to charity. This feels selfish to me. If I don’t get to eat out, I will suffer far less than someone who doesn’t get to eat.

            But also of course, it feels kind of unfair to classify eating out as a selfish activity, when the millionaires & billionaires of the world are “eating out” at a much more despicable rate. Thinking about this makes me feel better about my self-perceived wrongdoings. I say to myself, “True, I could spend less money on nonessentials and instead donate to a charity that feeds starving people. But then again, the amount I could donate is so much less than the amount Jeff Bezos could donate. Therefore if anything, I should criticize Jeff Bezos and not myself.”

            After reflecting on this reflection, I do agree that Jeff Bezos should donate a larger share of his fortune than I do. It is more despicable for Jeff Bezos to spend billions of dollars on himself than it is for me to spend thousands of dollars on myself. Billions are incomprehensibly larger than thousands. But also, does a more despicable act make a less despicable act less despicable?

            My perspective changes when I start to account for people’s lives. Maybe I could have saved multiple lives by now if I had donated more of my spare time & money to charitable causes. My actions seem much less defensible when I frame it this way. How could I ever say that my desire to dress fashionably is more important than another’s life?

            But when the only thing I do is compare the amount of money I can donate to the amount of money Jeff Bezos can donate, my actions seem more defensible by comparison. Undoubtedly, Jeff Bezos has the power to alleviate more suffering than I do, but I am not powerless. I can help people if I choose to do so. Lack of time & money cannot explain why I don’t do more good things.

            Also I want to note that I don’t think philanthropy & volunteerism are the cure to the world’s ills. I would much prefer to live in a world that guarantees basic human rights like food, water, shelter, education, and healthcare. These provisions might render philanthropy & volunteerism unnecessary. Unfortunately, I do not have the power to guarantee everyone these rights, but I will fight to make this vision a reality. Political activism is on my list of “Good Things that I don’t do Enough Of”, along with volunteerism & philanthropy.

            I also want to mention some potential problems associated with philanthropy. Some common criticisms of philanthropy include: it doesn’t address root problems, it is self-serving, it comes with strings attached, it is an exercise of power by the wealthy, and it perpetuates unjust systems. Some people liken philanthropy to stealing bread and giving back crumbs in return. Some people argue philanthropy keeps unjust systems intact because it absolves governments of the responsibility to aid suffering people. I haven’t thought about it a whole lot, but I feel like these criticisms have some validity. But also, if not through philanthropy & volunteerism, how else can I directly help the millions of people currently starving & suffering?

            Maybe I don’t do more good things because I’m selfish. And actually, I think selfishness does partially explain my reluctance to do good things for others. But also, I know if I was presented with the options of

1. Hardly ever spend money on nonessential items for the rest of my life and save the lives of 5 people
2. Carelessly spend money on nonessential items and allow those 5 people to die

I would pick the first option in a heartbeat. But my brain doesn’t often think in this fashion. Why doesn’t my brain think in this fashion?

            Also it can be objected that the options above don’t actually apply to the real world, that this is a false dilemma. Maybe that objection is correct, but I don’t know, I feel like charities that feed starving people certainly do save lives, and that if, over a lifetime, I donated my nonessential money to these charities, I could probably save at least 5 lives, probably many more. Imagine what the world would look like if wealthy people from wealthy countries redistributed large portions of their income to poor people from poor countries. I feel like there would be a lot less suffering people.

            But back to my original question, why doesn’t my brain think in this fashion? Why do I hardly ever consider the opportunity cost of people’s lives when I’m eating out, or during my 5 hours of daily screentime? Why is it when I buy a new pair of jeans, that I don’t consider the starving people who could have been fed with that same money? I think there are three main reasons: a culture of selfishness, opaqueness, & numbing.

            Also thank you to Peter Singer (culture of selfishness), Karl Marx (opaqueness), Paul Slovic (numbing), & probably lots of other unmentioned people. They have inspired my thinking a lot.

A Culture of Selfishness

            It’s quite embarrassing & dispiriting to admit this, but I feel like a lot of my beliefs & behaviors can be explained by environmental factors. Culture is perhaps the most influential of these environmental factors. And unfortunately, my culture does not seem to be particularly passionate about philanthropy & volunteerism. My culture does appear to be quite fond of personal luxuries. Most people living in wealthy countries have excessive amounts of everything.

It is an unfortunate fact that if everybody else is living a certain way, it feels okay to live that way. Normal is synonymous with acceptable. Everyone else is excessively spending on food, fashion, cars, houses, concerts, phones, entertainment, personal items, why would it be wrong for me to do the same? Very few people are donating large portions of their income to charitable causes. These people are regarded as very generous & noble. My culture seems to say to them, “It’s so nice of you guys to do that! However, I’m not a bad person for not doing that.”

And so my culture seems to do a lot more to incentivize personal indulgences than it does to incentivize charitable donations. My culture thinks it’s acceptable, or even desirable, to spend excessive amounts of money on luxury items. Even more saddening, my culture often perceives luxury items to be necessary items. My culture thinks it’s okay if I don’t want to donate my time, money, & energy towards helping suffering people.

Since my culture thinks this way, I have also tended to think this way. But as I think more about it, I’m starting to feel like my culture is really wrong. I feel like it’s really selfish. If millions of people are starving, and I can prevent some of these people from starving by donating my time & money, then I should donate my time & money. My desire to eat at expensive restaurants, dress in fashionable clothes, go on fancy vacations, & attend expensive concerts, is far more trivial than another’s desire to not starve every day.

I feel like I have an obligation to help others who are suffering, especially when helping them comes at little cost to myself, especially when helping them can save a life, or feed a hungry mouth, or prevent a painful disease.

I don’t know how to change this culture. I suppose I should start by changing myself.

Opaqueness

            Something is opaque if I can’t see through it. Pretty much everything I have ever bought is opaque. The only thing I ever see is the final product, everything else about it is unknown. When I buy a T-shirt, where does it come from? What materials were used to create it? Were the materials synthetic? Were they extracted from the earth? To what extent did the extraction damage the earth? How was the T-shirt crafted? Were child workers or exploited workers part of the production process? How many miles did the T-shirt travel to get here? What happens to the T-shirt when I throw it away?

            Sometimes I can find out the answers to these questions, but a lot of the time I can’t. Businesses want to be profitable, so they want to be efficient, so they have supply chains to specialize in different aspects of production. These supply chains can get really long & complex. With complexity comes obscurity. These supply chains can obscure the eight-year-old Bangladeshi girl who works 100 hours a week for $2 a day. Her labor is used to create the inexpensive T-shirt that I wore only a couple of times.

What kind of person am I to sponsor such a system? How much cruelty, destruction, & evilness is embedded in the products I buy?

            If things weren’t so opaque, then I wouldn’t sponsor such evilness. I would never buy a T-shirt labeled “Made from Bangladeshi Child Labor”. But since everything I buy is opaque, I feel like I have a responsibility to gaze through this opaqueness, and learn everything I possibly can about the products I buy, and boycott the products that are produced by evil acts. I also feel like I have a responsibility to raise awareness and to support policies that will make things less opaque, and more transparent.

            Cruelty & suffering are not only concealed within the products I buy, they are also concealed by time & space. When I fly to visit my family in Chicago, I don’t take much time to consider the future generations who will suffer from the climate change resulting from my flight’s emissions. I don’t think about the millions of climate refugees who will be displaced by rising sea levels & natural disasters. I don’t think about the millions of people who will suffer from food & water insecurity. Climate change is already making people suffer right now, but future generations will undoubtedly bear the greatest portion of this burden.

Climate change particularly sucks because now I have to consider how my actions will affect people who are yet to be born. The time lag associated with climate change obscures the consequences of my actions. Which is really unfortunate because releasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere is perhaps the most harmful thing I will do during my time here on earth, but this is nonobvious. I wasn’t born with the ability to understand how eating beef will cause deforestation, and that this deforestation will release carbon into the atmosphere, which will cause some level of climate change, which will cause some level of human suffering. It’s kind of a cruel irony that releasing carbon is perhaps both the most damaging and the most obscure form of violence I can commit.

Geographical space also does a lot to obscure suffering. I live in a wealthy suburban community and I hardly ever see poverty with my own eyes. Since homelessness is not a major problem in my community, I don’t give it much thought. This effect becomes even more pronounced when I think about people suffering on another continent.

This same logic can be applied to animals on factory farms. These animals are treated with immense cruelty, and of course I don’t want to sponsor cruel treatment of animals, but sometimes it’s hard to remember this when the cruelty is occurring behind the opaque walls of some unknown location. Out of sight out of mind is too real.

There are so many layers of removal between me & the consequences of my actions. Time, space, the profit motive, and supply chains all play their part in generating the opaqueness that obscures my vision.

Numbing

            I think numbing is when I try to suppress negative emotions like grief, sadness, & guilt, through avoidance or denial. Sometimes I numb myself intentionally, like when I divert my gaze away from homeless people. Sometimes I numb myself unintentionally, like when I read a statistic that says something like “70 million refugees displaced worldwide”, but I feel nothing.

Sometimes I get coerced into numbing myself, like when I see everyone else doing something, so I start believing it’s ok to do that. Like eating eggs, dairy, & meat, even though these foods are the product of animals being brutally tortured on factory farms. Or when I see everyone else spending money on new back-to-school clothes, so now I want to buy new back-to-school clothes, even though I already have lots of clothes, and the new clothes have a good chance of being crafted by child workers, or exploited workers, and instead I could have donated the money to help feed starving people.

I think maybe it’s a good thing I numb myself, because if I was constantly dwelling on the suffering of others, I would rather quickly find my existence to be unbearable. But it’s also a bad thing I numb myself, because the main reason I try to alleviate suffering in others is because I can feel it in myself. I feel like empathy is a strength, and maybe it would be wrong to try to diminish its power.

But even if I tried to, there would be no way for me to ever comprehend the amount of suffering in this world. Obviously two starving children is worse than one starving child. And one million starving children is one million times worse than a single starving child. But intuitively, I don’t seem to comprehend these phenomena any differently. In fact, give the singular child a story, name, & face, and I’ll start caring about the singular child far more than the sum of the millions of others.

There are limits to my compassion, and my compassion does not exist in proportion to suffering. “70 million refugees” is unimaginable. I am more willing to spend my time & money to do good things for individuals with individualized stories, and less inclined to do so for groups represented with impersonal statistics. “70 million refugees” is a rather abstract idea that evokes very little emotion within me.

            Not only are humanitarian crises unfathomable, they also make me feel helpless & ineffective. Maybe I can help one family of refugees, but what about the millions of other families? It makes me feel like saying, “What’s the point?” It’s almost like if I can’t solve the problem in its entirety, then I feel like the problem isn’t worth addressing at all. But of course, helping one displaced family is made no less important simply because there are millions of other displaced families.

            Numbing is part learned and part innate, part intentional and part unavoidable. Numbing costs people their lives. A Culture of Selfishness & Opaqueness only serve to accentuate this numbing effect. I don’t know how to stop from numbing myself. I guess I just need to be alert & aware & care a lot.

How do I live my Life?

            If I were to live by the ideas I’ve expressed above my possible range of actions would be very limited. I wouldn’t be able to spend money on personal luxuries like new clothes, and new headphones, and lit concerts. For the things I would be permitted to buy, I wouldn’t be able to buy anything that was the product of child labor, exploited labor, animal cruelty, or unsustainable practices. Unfortunately in the world we live in, a lot of things are made with these ingredients.

            I wouldn’t be able to fly to see my family in Chicago. I wouldn’t be able to go for a leisurely Sunday drive in my fossil fuel powered car. I would have to justify every action that I know to emit carbon dioxide.

            It would be quite difficult to live this way. But I also think it’s the best way for me to live. I want to do the most good & the least harm. Doing good things makes me feel good & doing bad things makes me feel bad.

            Living this life is restrictive in a sense, but it is also very liberating. Liberating from my guilt, my hypocrisy, my cognitive dissonance. Living my life according to my values is harmonic. Harmony makes me happy. Striving for harmony gives me meaning & purpose. I’ll never live perfectly but I will try to.

Conclusion

            I don’t do more good things because a Culture of Selfishness & Opaqueness accentuate my innate tendency to numb and to act selfishly. I hope that identifying why I don’t do more good things will allow me to begin doing more good things. Doing good things is good for others’ sake as well as my own.

I used to really love ice cream. Like I ate it at least once a day if not twice. Throughout the day, I’d actually look forward to being able to eat it after dinner. But I don’t eat that kind of ice cream anymore, and I don’t crave it either. It actually really repulses me now. And that shift in my attitude has everything to do with learning about where the ice cream came from.

            I’ve only been vegan for less than a year now, and it took me a long time to fully transition. During that period, I was reluctant to learn the truth. I didn’t want to know about what they do to animals on farms. I didn’t want to know about how dairy, eggs, and meat were brought to my dinner table. I just wanted to enjoy my food.

            But it’s really important that we do know the truth about what happens, even though it is terribly unsettling. It’s important to know, because if we don’t know, billions of sentient beings will suffer, in agony, at the expense of our ignorance. We would be selfish to allow this to happen. It’s also important to know the truth for our own sake. It is truly a beautiful thing when one’s ethics & actions exist in harmony.

            So what is the truth? The truth is every time we consume animal products, we are prioritizing our own taste buds over another being’s right to life. The truth is that every time we consume animal products, we are sponsoring animal cruelty in exchange for a few minutes of sensory pleasure.

            That can be very difficult and inconvenient to believe. Because if you care about the fact that animals are subject to unimaginable acts of cruelty, then you also have to give up the many foods you love, the foods you crave, the foods you’ve eaten every day for your entire life.

            This is the dilemma I faced for so long. And even though, on multiple occasions, I was confronted with evidence confirming the animal industry’s relentless brutality, I kept eating its products. I would lie to myself. I would push away uncomfortable thoughts. I would tell myself it’s not actually that bad, and that the vegans are just exaggerating how terrible everything is. I would tell myself “sure, there may be a few isolated incidents where animals are treated poorly, but assuredly this cruel treatment can’t be the norm.” I would do my best to construe every logical argument possible to try to justify my eating habits. None of those arguments were very good. Nevertheless, I believed in them, I made myself believe in them. Because if I didn’t believe in them, then I would be a hypocrite, and I would feel guilty and ashamed. And I was just trying to eat my food.

            But the truth is, food is not just food. Embedded in our foods is the blood & agony & despair of other sentient beings. Embedded in our foods is the terrifying maltreatment of other species. Species that are complex and capable of experiencing a wide range of emotions, just as we do. Species that are capable of suffering deeply, just as we do.

            Milk is not just milk. It’s not just a harmless beverage. Cows, like all mammals, only produce milk so that they can nurse their young after giving birth. So to maximize milk production, the dairy industry artificially inseminates female cows for the duration of their lives, so that they will continually lactate. The baby calves are stolen & separated from their mothers often on their first day into this world, so that we can take the mother’s milk for ourselves. Milk is the separation & psychological trauma endured by both mother and calf.

            The dairy industry is male calves killed on sight, because for many farms, it’s not profitable enough to raise a cow that doesn’t produce milk. The male calves that are spared are sent to the veal industry, where they are raised in confinement and fed an iron deficient formula. This is all very intentional. The confinement and iron deficiency prohibit muscle development in the baby calves, which is what makes their flesh taste so tender. This torture goes on for a few short months, then the babies are slaughtered.

            The dairy industry is responsible for unbelievable amounts of fucked up shit. Milk, butter, yogurt, cheese, and ice cream, they’re not just tasty foods that upset your stomach. They are the product of an industry that torments millions of cows every single day.

            Milk is “dehorned” baby calves, who painfully & routinely have their horn tissue removed by searing-hot irons, blades, and saws. Cheese is mother cows hooked up to milk machines, where they are forced to produce milk at up to 10 times their natural rate. Yogurt is the frequent udder infections borne by cows due to the overexertion of their reproductive systems. Butter is mother cows calling out for their babies, days after they’ve been separated. Ice cream is mother cows sent to the slaughterhouse after only a quarter of their natural lifespans, their bodies depleted from the constant impregnation, lactation, and abuse.

            The egg industry is no different. Eggs are chickens crammed into cages so tight, they can’t even spread their wings. They remain in these cages for nearly their entire lives. Eggs are chickens with the tips of their beaks painfully burned off, so they don’t peck each other to death while trapped in claustrophobic cages. Eggs are the millions of male baby chicks tossed into incinerators to be grinded up alive, because why spend resources on raising a chicken that won’t lay eggs? Eggs are chickens forced to live within the fumes of their own urine & feces. Eggs are depleted hens, sent to slaughterhouses to be killed at only a fraction of their natural lifespans.

            Chicken, ham, sausage, turkey, bacon, pork, and beef: all the flesh of dead animals who did not wish to die. Many of these animals suffered in their moments of slaughter, and assuredly all of them suffered in their moments leading up to slaughter: crammed into claustrophobic cages and pens, exploited in every way possible to maximize the production of dairy, eggs and meat. Animal welfare is consistently and utterly neglected so that the industry can optimize their efficiency and profitability.

            It’s fucking terrifying and unacceptable that we’ve allowed this system of violence to become the norm. There are no words that I can write that will ever fully capture the brutality of the animal agriculture industry.

            I wrote this because it hurts so bad knowing that this happens every single day. I don’t want this to keep happening. I am so angry & frustrated, so devastated & distraught. I so desperately want to do everything I can to stop these cruelties from occurring.

I really appreciate anyone who’s still reading this, and I really appreciate anyone who reconsiders their habits.

            Please further educate yourselves. Please watch the videos of what goes on at factory farms, disturbing as they are. Please learn about how your foods get to the dinner table. Please learn the truth.

For the sake of the billions of individuals being needlessly tortured, factory farming must end.

Climate change really tests me. Every day I struggle with it. I love plants, animals, people, and I would hate to be the cause of their suffering. And yet almost every day I eat animal products, buy unnecessary consumer items, and further contribute to global emissions. I am a hypocrite to fight for the environment, while simultaneously and voluntarily engaging in activities to destroy it.

I don’t have it within me to withhold water from a thirsting individual. I could never destroy a family’s home and force them to migrate elsewhere. Nor could I ever start a forest fire, dry out a river, eradicate species from this earth, dismantle entire ecosystems. I would never impose extreme heat upon millions of people, or expose young children to poor air quality.

But I can eat dairy products with nearly every meal. I can fly from Phoenix to Chicago to vacation. I can buy an unnecessary amount of single-use plastic cups and t-shirts. I can use electrical appliances almost all day, knowing they’re powered by burning coal factories.

The only effective difference between withholding water from a drought-stricken city and jumping on an airplane, are a few intermediate steps, and some delay. My flight will burn fuel, emit greenhouse gases, contribute to climate change, and inevitably inflict drought upon millions of people.

But because the consequences are not so immediate, I can’t seem to fully comprehend them. It’s so very difficult for my brain to link everyday activities with the suffering of others. And yet they are so very connected.

I am choosing a lifestyle that will hurt others, and that is already hurting others. I can’t keep living with the contradiction. I must fight myself.

It is this realization, this guilt, that motivates me to take public transit, choose vegan options, mitigate my environmental footprint. Likewise, a constant contemplation of the climate crisis is what motivates me to stay politically active. We desperately need sweeping government action to combat climate change. And therefore any decision to not vote, to not call our representatives, to not protest, is a decision to be complicit in the suffering of others.

I think the number one hurdle in getting oneself to care about climate change is an inability to effectively comprehend the associated consequences. So I beg of everyone, live in constant awareness of the linkage between driving your car, and driving countless species to extinction. Between failing to participate in our democracy, and failing to prevent needless misery.

Internalize this the best you can. Allow this awareness to guide your actions. Allow this to anger you, impassion you, scare you, and allow this knowledge to vitalize you. Allow it to provide you a greater sense of purpose, to inspire you to become a part of something far bigger than yourself, a movement to envision a brighter future.