A Reality Check

This one hit me blindside.

I was checking in on Facebook and found a post a friend put up about this movie, "Earthlings".

I was totally unprepared for what came up. I will say here that I both encourage you to watch it (the trailer) and to turn it off when you must. Painful and thought-provoking.

I have never really thought of myself as an "animal lover" though I have two dogs and I love them. Each in their unique way add to my life and, truly, it's hard to imagine life without them. But I've always thought (true confession) of PETA people as being a bit over the top. You know...maybe they could spend their energies on, say, Doctors Without Borders, or Amnesty International, or even just their local homeless shelter. Humans uber alles. Ok, I admit this.

However just a few minutes of this movie with the knowledge that these could be "my" pets were so horrific that I had to turn it off. I can't conceive of watching the whole thing. I get it.

Really.

That little bit of film made me want to be very, VERY conscious of what I eat, wear, consume. All too often those actions are thoughtless. They seem simple, automatic, yet in truth they are profoundly important and profoundly difficult to sort out.

For many years I was a vegetarian until children and a meat eating husband dropped into my life and eventually I caved. Now single with children grown, I've been turning back that way, even towards a vegan diet, but not consistently and not with any real agenda except that it feels better to me physically.

This film has given me reason to think beyond my health alone.

Leather shoes and belts? Handbags and car seats?

Dead animals. Did they just drop dead of natural causes.

No.

But cloth shoes and bags? Vegan shoes??? Isn't this a little ridiculous?

Such seemingly simple things but ... they aren't. Cotton is grown with pesticides that are harmful to everyone, human and animal alike. Rubber soles on vegan shoes: at what cost to the environment? To the people who work in the factories? People who work for a pittance to make the clothing and shoes I wear?

Of course there's organic...at a cost - to me, anyway.

Such seemingly simple things but ... they are not. It's a lot to sort out, and once you become conscious of the choices the path stretches out as far as your life runs - with more decisions at every turn.

It sounds heavy, and I suppose in one sense it is, but in fact the positive choices I make lead to joy; to a better, cleaner, more sustainable and happy world.

I can't change the world, little ole me, all by myself. I can't stop the war in Libya or Monsanto's pollution and greed, or human slavery on my own, but I do have this one wonderful life to do pretty much as I please.

I'm thinking....