What's the worst thing you've ever done?

I once turned on the voice recorder on my phone and shoved it in front of my wife. "What's the worst thing you've ever done?" I asked her.

She laughed for about two minutes straight, I love her laugh, it's intoxicating, so full of joy and without malice. Unfortunately, my phone decided that life with me was no longer bearable and decided to turn itself off and never reactivate. So I'll have to try that stunt again, nothing gets me through a bad day like listening to her laugh.

Seriously though, what's the worst thing you've ever done?

If you ask most people this question they might gaze upwards for awhile and then reply:

"I cheated on my wife."

"I picked on this kid at school."

"I stole from my parents, and I've never been able to forgive myself!"

It's not a pleasant thought. We've all done bad things, things we regret. Everyone will have a "worst thing I've done" sometimes it'll seem pretty tame, and other times it'll seem monumental.

It's a complicated question. For instance, maybe your thinking something like "The worst thing I've done was leaving a friend behind on the battlefield." but when I hear the story I'm hearing "war hero under heavy fire who had little choice."

Anyhow, I was just joking when I asked my wife this question, but it got me thinking. "What is the worst thing I've ever done?" The answer wasn't obvious. I've never been a bully, I've never killed a man, I've never held up a bank...so what's the worst thing I've ever done?

After umpteen minutes it dawned on me. The worst thing I've ever done was torturing and killing hundreds of animals.

Why was this not obvious?

Three facts about me:

1. I'm vegan.

2. I find the treatment and killing of animals by the meat, dairy, egg, vivisection and all other forms of exploitation to me abominable and probably the greatest crime of our time.

3. For 20 something years I ate meat, drank milk, ate eggs and didn't bother to see if a product was tested on animals before I bought it.

So for 20 something years I partook in what I think is "one of the greatest crimes of our time" but it didn't spring to the front of my mind. Am I insane? No, just human.

Yes, although I'm vegan I've still been brainwashed by a LIFETIME of smiling clowns trying to sell me the chard remains of Daisy the cow, pictures of winking chickens giving me the 'thumbs-up' above establishments that sell their deep fried corpses and products that are so mild on my skin because the prototype burned the epidermal layers off fifty cats.

We live in a world the could be heaven. We have so many resources, so much technology, but even from this heaven we direct animals into the gates of Hell.

We need to choose vegan. We need to be compassion. We need to go out our way to end the cycle of brainwashing and violence against animals, the planet and each other that we see every single day.

Kindness

When I gaze up at the stars and think of the vastness of the universe, or it crosses my mind how many billions of people inhabit the earth it makes me feel reassuringly small. Why reassuringly small? Well, I know my car hitting a nail isn't really worth having a meltdown over. "21st Century earth - we landed on Mars, the ice caps melted, and Dan got a flat."

When I flip things around I'm overwhelmingly big. I'm the most massive thing I'll ever have control of, my actions are the most important things I'll ever do, my words are the most important things I'll ever say.

However as a species we tend to think we are a BIG DEAL, we're humans, and in case you didn't hear, we're sorta something special. So special that because we like the taste of animals we slaughter between 50 and 100 million animals each day, but no major headlines, because it's not humans that are being killed. On the other hand about 70 years ago 6 million Jews were killed.

So yeah, obviously the murder of 6 million Jew is something beyond contempt, beyond disgusting, beyond brutal. What does that make the slaughter of BILLIONS of our fellow animals each year at our own hand no less, purely because we enjoy their taste and texture at dinner time.

It's really messed up. However, my rant about numbers is over, the figures speak for themselves.

I would like to say a little about kindness. More to the point, why kindness is important. Ancient text would somehow have us believe that we all have free will. I can see how years ago this would have been a convincing argument. There's a coin toss, do I pick head or tails, the choice is mine...right?

Consider this, we are a very complex biological system. We are made up of sub atomic particles which form atoms, which form molecules, which form the components of our cells, which in turn form our cells, these make up our tissues, organs, bones, blood and every other constant part of our person which  combined together forms us.

Now if you were to have that exact same arrangement of energy and matter, right from a sub atomic level and put it in the exact same situation, you would get the same outcome over and over again.

Heavy stuff.

Now studies would suggest, as I'm sure you are are all aware, that people who are exposed to violence are more likely to be violent themselves. People who are exposed to kindness are more likely to be kind. Don't get me wrong there are some AMAZING stories of survivors of violence going on to become remarkable, kind people. Although the evidence speaks for itself, if you need more evidence, consider this, those raised Muslim and most likely to continue to be muslims, Christians, Christian, Jewish, Jews, and so on.

So if you're looking for a more scientific reason to be kind, there it is! Kindness propagates kindness, so if you want the those around you to be kind to you, be kind to them.

This trail of thought would lead me to think, "how can we promote kindness,  how can we build a better tomorrow, a more compassionate and sustainable future, when we kill billions of animals just because come dinner time we prefer their taste to lentils?" Saying non-human animals matter any the less because the are not human is like me saying non-white humans matter less because they aren't white.

Does the animal feel? Yes. Does the animal want to die? No. 

Be kind, don't kill people, don't kill animals, be a vegan. It does make a difference. It does matter.