Over the last 23 years I've built my entire life around giving back. I own a company that is rooted firmly in giving back and activism. I live where I do for the benefit of others and this affords me the opportunity to be with family. Every altruistic action comes with it's own reward and I used to think this negates selflessness but the longer you do it the less you tend to consider the rewards- I forgot about them till I wrote that last line. At the same time though if I wasn't happy and at peace I probably wouldn't do it.
When I was 15 I went vegetarian after slaughtering and eating a few of my friends on the farm. I fell in love with a calf named Sunny, a lamb named Howard, Rock Hudson the rooster, and even Silver Bridge the horse and we ate them all- oh and Charlotte the huge awesome pig. I felt the same for these buds and pals as I felt for the family dog and cat, what the psych community calls unconditional positive regard (love). I could no longer eat them without vomiting violently and just feeling so much shame and guilt that fit hand-in-glove with drug addiction. Activism has been giving me the same joy as volunteerism.
When the fur store closed after years of protests and demos the sense of accomplishment and peace for the saved critters was indescribable. Bringing together disparate individuals for a vegan potluck party results in long-term community and offshoots that couldn't be imagined. My current property is so huge but easily traversed willy-freakin-nilly so I've been building trails and converting it to protected wildlife area. Keeping on the trails allows the wildlife, which is a very dense population here, to have less imposed stress while also allowing us to view more of them as they are. I go out at night and walk the trail without any light by bright starlight. I visit the trail at dawn and dusk when everybody is chirping and hopping and stalking and I love it beyond words. What I get out of it is much better than a "helper's high" this high will go on and on. I don't even have to visit the trail to enjoy it.
Tomes can and have been written on the subject, I'm going for short form here.
In my thinking activism and volunteerism can be the same thing but we rarely join the two semantically. In the last ten years I can tell you never once had I considered helping the chimps from being tortured by the university as volunteerism. Never considered using my company to sponsor animal rights events as volunteerism. All those days spent in the freezing snow or burning sun to help inform the uninformed, that is activism. Now I know that it is also volunteerism. Never once did I think to list it on any form or resume that asked about "Volunteer Experience..." but now that veganism has gone mainstream perhaps we can lift the connotation of Animal Rights Activism, the connotation of the Animal Liberation Front can now be joined with words like "organic" and "natural" along with others. Oh yes animal liberation has most definitely gone mainstream but that does not mean ease up on the activism. Now is when we really need to shine the light on the path for these noobs. Populist voices will distract many into dull comfort and inaction and that just comes with popularity. Activism needs to remain a big component of what veganism is as long as injustice, violence against the voiceless continues.
Here's a mama hummingbird I found while maintaining the trail. Protecting her little jellybean of a baby, too cute!
