Recently I have been under more stress than my normal dose. By that I mean, I'm in the middle of buying a house. Anyone who has bought a house in the last decade will know exactly what I mean by it being a crazy, wild, stressful ride. With all of that going on, my relationship has been largely reduced to cleaning and gathering information together, so rather roommate and business partner-like. That paired with working extra hours has left my only "oasis" to be work, which has NEVER been my oasis. It's the closest thing I have to anything that takes my mind off my stresses for a moment and calms me down. That's pretty bad considering my current patient is the most difficult one I've ever had in my life.
Now I'm not a big people person anymore, due to my over-adventurous past and constant thrust into service jobs which require me to be a sweet little lady in the face of assholery. I really should have included in my past adventures, a career in domination. I could have gotten paid to insult people and smack them around for fun! Nooooo. I had to choose a service career where I'm considered a notch above a servant. At least it pays decent.
With all of this going on, my patience has run short, if not practically non-existent and because of the nature of myself, I attract certain types of people in my life. I guess I would call them the kind of people that like to live on the fringes of society. That comes in all shapes and sizes but one fringe that I barely can deal with are my activist friends. Two groups that I have a love/hate relationship with are my trans peeps and my vegans. I have never done very well with people who think in black and white.
I have a lot of respect for both of these groups of people but there's a common thread I see among many of them. I don't know if it's because they largely feel ignored, at this point in time, or if both are having extra chemical issues the rest of us don't normally deal with. Many of both of these groups LOVE to evangelize and rule with anger. They are pissed off because no one is listening while atrocities are being committed every moment. Let me split them apart for a moment so I can elaborate.
Let's start with my trans folks first. This group of people is probably the most marginalized and discriminated group there is... On the planet. Yes, I will take the plunge and say they have it worse than anyone in the world. I get why they are pissed off. I get why they rant and rave. I wish so hard I could fix it and hope with everything in me that things will eventually become better and that the world will come to understand them more and treat them like every other human being, except maybe a group with special needs because they have a lot to deal with internally besides just emotional junk. They also have to deal with hormone craziness, assuming they go that route with transition. The thing that irritates the holy hell out of me is the sub-group that holds every person's word, language and mannerisms under a microscope. Not the cheap microscopes in high school science class... The electron microscopes that can make a speck of dust look like a crazy lumpy planet. People who actually give a shit about their feelings are too afraid to say anything contrary for fear of being labeled "trans-phobic" so everyone just tip toes around and wears their kid gloves. Well if you want to be treated like everyone else, here's a dose of reality baby. I get that your whole world is centered around gender identity. I really do get that. What YOU don't get is that the vast majority of the world has other worries and focuses AND THAT'S OKAY. Stop requiring the whole world to have the majority of their focus on gender issues and stop requiring that all people are born with some vast trans-vocabulary that will actually please you, that they are good enough to speak out loud. Please understand that most folks have never and will never meet a trans person, at least that they know of, in their life. They barely even know what the word transgender means, let alone getting all offended if someone says transgendered instead of transgender or they look at you like you have 3 heads when you use the term "cis-gendered". That's YOU separating yourself from everyone else and excluding yourself from the rest of the population. I'm all about labels being used descriptively but when it comes to labeling other people, it's best if we use labels for ourselves. Just like you wish to carry a label that fits your spirit, don't go around presuming to label everyone else and then expect them to welcome you with open arms. Hostility towards cis-gendered folks just makes you look crazy, extreme and frankly, jealous. If you wish to go the route of educating people, most likely you need to dumb it waaaay down and don't be pissed about it. Most of you may live in a safety bubble of people who already know this stuff so you may take for granted how little the rest of the world knows about you. Try to give people the benefit of the doubt that while they may be ignorant and old-fashioned and scared, most people still have a pretty good heart and would actually be open to something new if presented in a kind and patient way.
A lot of this line of thinking goes to the vegans I know. They are hard-core animal rights activists. I get that. I get the love of animals. I get the desire, need and connectedness with the world around us. I get the rage at people's carelessness, at factory farming and all the cruelty and abuse that animals are forced to endure in the name of cheap meat for people. I really do get that. To me veganism is an ideal. I would love it if the human body were designed to be totally healthy living on plants alone. I truly, truly do not believe this is the case. I have studied nutrition extensively, along with my own personal experimentation with different styles of eating. I absolutely, to the core of my being, feel that the human body was designed to be healthy WITH animal products. I absolutely advocate raising animals humanely in as natural of a habitat as possible and that when they are killed for consumption, it be done in the quickest and least traumatic way possible. I absolutely advocate for sustainability of all food resources and energy resources. I have met maybe a small handful of people who have been vegan for decades and appear to be healthy. The vast majority I have met cannot sustain it and their health fails them. Now it is debatable between the vegans and I if said failures were due to eating smart or eating vegan. That being said, I also think that vegans love to lump all "meat eaters" into one category and whatever studies that are performed on health, do not separate out those who eat factory farmed products, along with a bunch of processed junk, and those that eat sustainable, organic and pastured products with no processed fake crap. I get that you think killing animals for ANY reason is committing murder. Do you know who you sound like? You sound like pro-life advocates. You sound like extreme tea-party freaks who think the earth was really built by a big invisible man in a week and that dinosaur bones were put in the Earth to test our faith. I'm being very serious here. As long as you refer to people who eat meat as murderers you will get NO WHERE.
I have a few bones to pick with these people.
First off, if you associate openly with PETA, you will automatically be put in the crazy freak group and no longer listened to. PETA is known for pulling crazy stunts that involve vandalizing property and actually putting animals in MORE harm than they were before. Another thing, which will also be in another post regarding Facebook etiquette, please know that ALL animal lovers know that there are people out there that are cruel to animals and abuse them. When you post graphic depictions of this it doesn't save any animals. It only traumatizes the people who are already on your side and makes them feel even more helpless than before... and depressed. Depressed at the state of the world because there is so much shittiness in it. It's overwhelming and WE CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! So thanks for your images that we can never unsee and will haunt us forever. Your tactics of guilt and shame are really shitty and ineffective because the rest of the people who aren't animal lovers don't give a shit. IF there is an actual way to save these animals, please post THAT. Not, "Oh the humanity! Look what you pieces of shit condone!" Really? How well is that working for you? I have news for you. I'm not going to starve my body to suit you. I feel like total shit if I eat nothing but plants and I always feel like I'm starving. Starving makes me bitchy. Like I am going to kill someone and then eat them, kind of bitchy. Don't TELL me I don't love animals because I eat meat. Some animals eat other animals. It's called NATURE. Nature is a bitch sometimes. I can't watch a lion kill a gazelle but I realize it is the natural order of things. I hate that my cats might catch a cute little bunny and kill it. It's their nature. If I had to live off the land, I would kill animals and eat them. I would not find joy in it but I would do what needs to be done in order to survive. I get that this probably pisses you off. I DON'T CARE. Your emotional overload is really your issue to deal with. I will fight factory farming with you. Not with rage and screaming and ranting though. I will calmly educate people I believe are ready to hear it and I will not try to shock them into complying. People are being more educated. I see the change. The world will never be vegan but I do believe that animals will receive better treatment than they do now. I do believe that local farms that are honest and transparent will be seeing more and more business and that will create other problems, but hopefully we will work out better solutions. You will NOT win people to your side with anger and rage, with guilt and shame. You just look like a crazy person who is starving for nutrients you aren't getting from plants. You will get lots of cheers from the people already on your side and if that's what you are going for, all the more power. If you are just needed to say, "Here's my opinion!" then go for it. If you really want to win people over, being an asshole isn't going to work.
If you want to create change then BE the change. Be friendly and respectful to the people around you and they will come to you for information. Give your information in a calm and non-judgmental manner and allow them the space to come to their own conclusions. If you try to force the issue, it will only make matters worse. That being said, no matter how sweet and kind religious people are to me, I will never identify with their religion. I will appreciate their gentle manner and will have an exchange of ideas with them but I will never be one of them. I will also never be a vegan but I'm perfectly open to dialogue and meeting at a certain level of common ground. This can be done. I know it can. Death is a part of life and every living thing becomes food to sustain other living things. That's how life keeps going on. It can be done with reverence and respect and I hope that some day that will be enough to bring you peace.
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