metaphortunate son (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
metaphortunate) wrote2014-04-08 09:59 pm
metaphortunate) wrote2014-04-08 09:59 pm
Entry tags:
set the captives free
I went to the pet store today to buy fish food for the fish in the day care aquarium.
I nearly threw up. There were like a million catatonic bettas there, nearly motionless in their three quarters of a cup of water which is all they give them. There was one chinchilla all alone which no one will ever buy because it was all grown. So many animals in tiny little boxes.
I know, I know, I eat animals. But the truth is that I’d be moving towards vegan if that wouldn’t end up with me getting divorced. But also true is that me being vegan on my own, like even if I were a real vegan rather than, y’know, making gestures in that direction which is what I would even have the energy for, wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to the amount of animal suffering in the world, not a drop in the ocean’s worth. Not even to the animal suffering caused by humans, which, can you compare it to the amount of animal suffering caused by other animals?
Henry Mitchell (on whom more anon) writes, “Nature is endlessly ingenious and, of course, unspeakably vicious and barbaric. Any complaints should be sent not to me but to the designer of the universe. I never minded the fact that the whole system rests essentially on death, and who eats whom, but surely a kinder, gentler means of death could have been devised for bugs, bunnies, and so forth. The only good thing about the system is that from time to time nature is beautiful beyond dreaming, and nothing can be done about it.”
I mind. I mind, I don’t know why. Probably I was raised wrong without enough contact with death. Probably we should be taking the Junebug, and Rocket when he is old enough, to tour an abattoir and teach them to kill chickens and butcher cattle. It’s too late for me, I mind. And nothing can be done about it. Sometimes it seems to me that the definition of life is just matter having gained the capacity to suffer. I used to think it was sad that as far as we know there is only life on this one tiny planet in the universe, and the rest of the whole thing will have no one to appreciate it, ever. The more I think of it, the more I think of the universe as an amazing system of beauty infested with one bit of perverse filth in one tiny corner. At least it is on its way to wiping itself out. Let matter set itself free.
I nearly threw up. There were like a million catatonic bettas there, nearly motionless in their three quarters of a cup of water which is all they give them. There was one chinchilla all alone which no one will ever buy because it was all grown. So many animals in tiny little boxes.
I know, I know, I eat animals. But the truth is that I’d be moving towards vegan if that wouldn’t end up with me getting divorced. But also true is that me being vegan on my own, like even if I were a real vegan rather than, y’know, making gestures in that direction which is what I would even have the energy for, wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to the amount of animal suffering in the world, not a drop in the ocean’s worth. Not even to the animal suffering caused by humans, which, can you compare it to the amount of animal suffering caused by other animals?
Henry Mitchell (on whom more anon) writes, “Nature is endlessly ingenious and, of course, unspeakably vicious and barbaric. Any complaints should be sent not to me but to the designer of the universe. I never minded the fact that the whole system rests essentially on death, and who eats whom, but surely a kinder, gentler means of death could have been devised for bugs, bunnies, and so forth. The only good thing about the system is that from time to time nature is beautiful beyond dreaming, and nothing can be done about it.”
I mind. I mind, I don’t know why. Probably I was raised wrong without enough contact with death. Probably we should be taking the Junebug, and Rocket when he is old enough, to tour an abattoir and teach them to kill chickens and butcher cattle. It’s too late for me, I mind. And nothing can be done about it. Sometimes it seems to me that the definition of life is just matter having gained the capacity to suffer. I used to think it was sad that as far as we know there is only life on this one tiny planet in the universe, and the rest of the whole thing will have no one to appreciate it, ever. The more I think of it, the more I think of the universe as an amazing system of beauty infested with one bit of perverse filth in one tiny corner. At least it is on its way to wiping itself out. Let matter set itself free.
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