This may be a work long time in the writing. It’s been no secret that I refuse to eat anything that comes from an animal. The reasons, however, seem to remain a mystery to all but a select few who I think are willing to hash out counter-arguments, but retain the possibility to be convinced otherwise.
Originally, when I first stopped eating meat, I planned on not becoming a vegan. There was no cause for me at that time. In June, 2006 I was with my family at an event for Steve Lavelle’s Karate at the YMCA. Vegetarianism had been floating on my mind. I couldn’t tell you why. For years Propagandhi had been playing on my stereo, and other such music which all had promoted the idea. I listened to those songs, yet never conceded to the seemingly radical impulse. I knew what the songs were about, but disagreed. My overweight, chubby teenage self was more interested in stuffing my face with a greasy double cheeseburger from Burger King and wolfing down a 32oz cup of Coke-a-Cola. Hedonistically, I continued that way for most of high school. I wouldn’t eat anything that grew out of the ground except potatoes, and would occasionally tell people that I was on a diet: Nothing Green.
But on that day in June, for some reason, I told my brother that I was thinking of being a vegetarian. I remember that he had reciprocated a similar inclination. Later that day while he and I were at home, I saw he was picking around the chunks of meat in a pasta salad. I asked him about it and his response was “you have to start somewhere.” He started, I thought, until the next day I saw him eating meat. Well, I had started as well, but I didn’t stop. For a month I didn’t eat meat, my brother and I never talked about it, I didn’t tell my parents, and life was okay.
One day at dinner my mother asked why I wasn’t eating any of the steak (or whatever the meat dish was that night). My brother chimed in. I took some flak from my father, whose diet I previously imitated, my brother laughed, I don’t remember what my sister did, nor mother. The next day my mother did something that I didn’t really appreciate until later years. She came home from work with a handful of pamphlets about eating healthy as a Vegetarian. At the time the gesture only registered as a motherly-interference, not as motherly-support.
As the summer drew on, I felt more and more guilty about eating eggs, milk, and cheese. I don’t know why. That’s a point I want to stress: I don’t know why. Come my 18th birthday, August 2nd, 2006, I declared that “tomorrow I will stop consuming dairy products.” Then I stuffed down my grandmother’s chocolate-caramel chip brownie. I never actually told anyone that I was going to stop eating these things, not at first. Again my mother helped me when she learned this. She bought me soymilk, which I heartily disliked at first. She got me some cookbooks, and I slowly learned how to concoct near vegan cuisine.
When I went to college, I made the last leap: no animal products. No honey, no gelatin, no whey, casein, and whatever else was derived the bodies of animals. I met Tim Mann my first semester in college, but didn’t really talk to him. The second semester we became pretty good friends in our Astronomy class. His knack for philosophy clicked with me, and we often found ourselves working out social issues. That, I think, is where the little reasoning I had for being a Vegan advanced into essentially essay-like litanies; reasons which I cannot summarize in the five minutes that the casual inquiring person is looking for. Let’s face it: people don’t actually want to hear someone give a lecture on their beliefs.
So here I am, four years later, still Vegan with potentially four good essay-length reasons for being vegan, all of which stand fairly well, but can fall apart when pushed to the point of theorizing about a utopian sort of world. Free ranged, well treated, well loved and fed, not genetically altered eggs from chickens in your personal home farm is acceptable. But I don’t have that, nor do most people. And frankly I still wouldn’t eat the eggs, because I have an essay length health related reason supporting a vegan diet. All of the essays actually defend one another. I don’t like claiming that “I will be like this forever” or “I’m never going to change.” I’m not that naive, not like when I was in high school. I am older now, I have changed. But for some reason I don’t see my veganism faltering.
And yes, I would be lying if I said that I’ve never considered turning back. But I’d like to think that with my understanding of the world, with my understanding of myself, that I am not that selfish. “Life is too short to make others’ shorter.”
And still, after this, you still don’t know my reasons. Ask me sometime over some coffee, or tea. Just don't plan anything for the few hours after we start.
