Following Atticus Has Meant Learning Compassion

I changed something in my life this week.  It wasn’t an earthshattering alteration, but I feel good about it nonetheless.  Writing about it here and now is the only reason anyone (other than my close friends) will know there’s something different. 

Last year I decided to switch to a plant-based diet because I didn’t want to eat animals or animal products anymore.  I did well and was quite happy with my new way of eating and I only deviated on a handful of occasions while out with a friend eating cheese on my pizza or when I faulted and didn’t realize there was butter or milk or eggs in something I ate.  But that didn’t matter too much to me since I’m not about beating myself up about any of this. 

You see, I wasn’t out to change the world, simply to change myself. I stopped eating animals because I didn’t want them to have to suffer for my desires. 

Interestingly enough, when some friends learned of my vegan diet they were immediately threatened by my choice.  Perhaps they thought that I would then become an angry apostle of veganism and they actually became angry with me.  But that wasn’t my intent.  I don’t really care what anyone else eats.  That’s their business, just as what I eat is my business.  Besides, who was I to criticize them after spending half a century devouring McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, and Pizza Hut as if my life depended on it?

Recently, however, I feel as though I’d not gone as far as I could.  The more I look into how animals needlessly suffer for us, the more I realized there were further steps I could be taking.  My clothes for instance.  I bought a new pair of Keen sandals this past year but there are animal products in them.  I could have just has easily have gone with some vegan sandals but I’ve always bought Keens. It was a matter of habit and convenience.  And my bathroom cabinets – they were filled with the usual toothpastes, shaving creams, soaps, shampoos, antiperspirants, etc.  So this past week I decided that I would go the next step and from now on I would only buy cruelty-free clothing and my toiletries and household cleaning products are now all cruelty-free. 

What is cruelty-free?  Wikipedia (talk about convenience) defines cruelty-free as: “Cruelty-free is a term often used by animal rights activists to describe a product or activity which does not require death or harm to animals. This includes products which have been tested on animals, since these tests are often extremely painful and lead to the suffering and untimely death of hundreds of thousands of animals every year.”

So why am I telling you about this if I’m not asking you to change?  I’m simply writing this as a public contract to myself, just as I have made much of my life public on our Facebook page, on our blog, or in our memoir. 

And what’s created this change in me from a fellow who loved his McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, and Ben & Jerry’s?  I can give you three reasons: Maxwell Garrison Gillis; Atticus Maxwell Finch; and William Lloyd Garrison.  Over the past thirteen years I have loved these three friends dearly and they’ve helped me to see things differently, just as I’ve helped them to live their lives differently had they not been with me.  Each has been a mutually beneficial partnership.

 

I’m no longer one of those people who says “My dog saved me”.  I just don’t believe that to be the case.  Not my case, anyway.  I’m now a person who believes that friendship transforms all of us and I prefer to think of the animals I’ve shared my life with as my friends.  I’ve changed because of them; just as they’ve changed because of me. 

Lord knows I wouldn’t want any of my friends, two-legged or four-legged, to have to suffer so that someone can wash their hair, brush their teeth, wear a leather belt, or have a meal.  And since I don’t think of dogs as that much different than us, and I don’t think of dogs all that different than pigs, cats, rats, monkeys, cows, bears, foxes, moose, eagles, hawks, and many other living creatures, I also see my own reflection in all of them as well.  I don’t believe in human slavery, therefore I don’t believe in animal slavery either.  I guess this is all part of my soul’s progression.  I’m becoming who I want to become.

Before you go thinking I’m too strident about all of this. I have to tell you that I’m not a fan of the vegan police – those holier than thou activists who seem to be angry about everything.  (They are all or nothing activists who even get angry at other vegans for not being “vegan enough”!)  Who I am a fan of is of compassionate people like Kathy Freston, Gene Baur, Lindsay Nixon, Rip Essyltyn, Dreena Burton and others in the vegan movement who use compassion and lead by example.

Recently I read somewhere that deciding to live cruelty-free is an easy thing to do.  It may be, but deciding to live that way and living that way are two different things.  The switch is not easy, not for most of us anyway.  I’ve had to break bad habits, give up things that have always been convenient, and I’ve had to start thinking in an entirely different way.  In her book, The Lean, Kathy Freston goes about helping people make the switch to healthier, vegan eating with a commonsense approach of doing something simple each day to make the step by step switch.  She teaches us to lean into the change.  That’s what I’ve done. 

Here’s what I like about my own progression to this new lifestyle.  I now feel more in tune with myself and with animals.  I don’t feel so hypocritical anymore – saying I love animals and ignoring what they had to go through to get to my plate and into my belly.  And more than anything I’m becoming more thoughtful.  I think about my place in the world and the choices I make and who they are impacting.  Life is a journey and this is where mine has taken me.  It’s not the way I planned or expected it, but it feels right. 

Joseph Campbell, the late mythologist, said, “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Following Atticus and his obvious compassion toward other animals (regardless of the species) has helped me understand compassion, while taking in unwanted and elderly Max and later Will has helped me exercise it as I never have.  And using the Golden Rule of treating them as I wish to be treated has helped me grow and transform in life.  Such is the gift of true friendship.  

 

(Following Atticus has lead to a more compassionate way of life for me.)

(Bringing in Will, an elderly special needs dog, has helped me exercise compassion.)