What's the point?

*sigh*

Frustration. Frustration is what I'm feeling now. Not anger, but maybe sadness, and just sheer frustration.

In all my years I have been an avid animal lover. I always believed that they were as sentinent and aware as we are, even if they are governed by a different set of instincts than we are. They feel pain and pleasure just as we do, they fight to keep themselves alive and preserve their future generations as we do, and yes, I do believe they are most definitely capable of love. Anyone who has allowed themselves to become close to a pet should know this...and anyone who has been around animals all their lives can tell that they are all different, with different personalities, and quirks that are just as varied as humans.

Animals have protected us, loved us, followed us, even died for us...what is it that we give them in return?

For so many years, I ignored what so many people continue to ignore today. Although I was an animal lover, I never stopped and thought about the practices that lead so many of them to unecessisary suffering and death. I thought somehow that the animals we eat and use for clothing must somehow be different, and I wouldn't be able to tell you when I came up with this conclusion, only that, that's what seemed to be implied...so that's what I went with. I never questioned the practice of eating cows, pigs, or chickens because if so many people did it, what could be wrong with it? Surely, there's a good reason. Surely, it's some kind of population control, or something equally sensible.

And what about wool, leather and fur? Even though I had always been against fur, what is really the difference between that and leather? And sheep don't get killed for wool...so it's like harvesting something! It's good for them to be sheared! They must like it!

Then one day, for some reason or another, I began to question these practices. I began to question...what is the difference between an animal used for consumption, and the animal that I love and take care of who is living in my house in my bed; one of the lucky few who will get to spend their lives wrapped in kindness while others are left wondering what they did wrong or what they did to deserve what's been brought upon them. What is the difference?

Are they less deserving of a life well lived because they cannot speak like we do, or look like we do, or walk like we do? We are somehow better than they are because we are so much smarter...smarter because they could never do the things we do? But how much of what they do, do we not even understand? Or could ever do...

I ask you this, what does this mindset remind you of? Has this very mindset not given birth to some of the greatest tragedies that befell humankind? Slavery...the halocaust...genocide?
What if our lack of respect to one life form...leads to lack of respect for all?

I saw a little dog almost get run over today, and chances are if no one does anything he will be dead by the end of the night. I wanted so desperately to go back and help him, and hinted at it but I knew the person I was riding with wouldn't even entertain the idea...and why is that? Would it be such an inconveinence to make a difference in helpless little beings life?

I've been trying to find someone to go to a fur protest with me, but no one is willing to speak out about something that would make someone uncomfortable. Surely, the animal who is skinned alive and left to bleed to death has more discomfort than most of us will ever know - yet we can't muster the ability to speak out against it.

Frustration.