04 Apr 2024
Some days, it feels like being an alien on this planet. You see how people live and you feel so very different.
I remember a few weeks after I went vegan - I was on the train into Wellington. It was early summer and I was heading into the city for some Xmas shopping. The air-conditioning on the train wasn’t working well and I could smell the sweaty passengers around me. There was one portly fellow to the side of me and I could smell the animals he had eaten dripping out of his pores as he sweat. Once you smell it, you have great difficulty not smelling it.
This isn’t just an issue with sweat, but with breath and farts. The breath of meat and dairy eaters can make you gag. When they fart, it smells like someone is rotting inside of them - which is the case.
I was still single and dating in those days before 2020. I didn’t have to decide to only date vegans from principle alone, as the smell of non-vegans put me off them quickly. I don’t pass by cemeteries and get aroused and in the same way, I am not aroused by walking tombs. I remember discussing this with a female omnivore and she was insulted - holding a mirror up can be painful.
I remember going on one of Wellington’s most beautiful sea-side walks a few months after going vegan. I was alone and enjoying the view, as I came around a corner and saw a single lamb on the path. I spoke softly to this fellow traveller and s/he looked at me for quite some time, before walking off. I wondered how much of the fear of us that other animals have is that they can smell death ozzing out of our bodies? We must appear as monsters to them!
I thought going vegan was simply an act of kindness, but it has been so much more. Even more than saving other lives, it has saved mine.
Aroha nui,
Lee Sturgis
leesturgis.eth
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