I know that a lot of the things I will be saying in this article, may sound as conflicting opinions. This blog was built to create awareness on the important issue which is “animal lives.” Having said that, the same way it’s important to make sure we aren’t harming animals (like our pets) and are offering them the best lives they can possibly have, we shouldn’t cross over to the other side: which is being overly sensitive about the issue, and going against anyone else who doesn’t agree with us. Yes, animal cruelty should be prosecuted, by let’s say someone is a meat lover and you are a vegan: you really have no right to go and act in a violent way against the meat eater. I mean, if we are preaching to be loving people and all, but then we go and act as animals (and not in a good sense) then we are being hypocritical.
In this article, I would like to talk about my opinion on animal activists and people that make careers out of that. Well…I guess I just said the magic word: “careers.” I mean think about it: if I’m being paid to say something, I can preach to everyone the importance of having plants and trees laying in our living room. I mean pay me enough money, and I will say or do almost anything. So when someone is getting hefty salaries and royalty checks from books and TV shows, I really can’t believe much of the things being said. I mean it’s not original, it’s not authentic. If someone has a regular day job, or is working in some company or whatever, and at the side is trying to create awareness (as I’m doing right now) then that’s fine. But if someone is spending his 9 to 5, on animal activism. I really don’t have much trust in those people. First of all, I don’t believe that those people are capable of delivering better results than the rest of us. When that is the only thing you do all day, and don’t have other perspectives or views in life, you can be a very isolated person in his own meaning and opinion of how the world runs. But if say that person doesn’t spend time with the meat eater to get his point of view and try to approach reality a little bit better, then the animal activist sees a world in which everyone would love to spend their whole lives for animal rights (which is wrong – half of the people don’t even care about animals.) So what I’m saying is, that it’s important to stay in touch with every day life. And how better can you do that, than coming in contact with your colleagues, your boss and other people in general?
Another thing I don’t like about animal activists, is the fact that they aren’t original. Not only are they being paid to say what they say, but also what they say is the same old thing. When someone is funding your book tour and you just get a fixed rate to go to x number of venues, you don’t have a lot of space for screwing up what you have to say. So what these people do, is spend like a week preparing their speech and everything they will talk about. Then they just keep on telling the same poem city after city. So it loses all its importance and meaning. And believe me: people understand when you are saying something that comes from your heart, and when you say something that you learned by heart and need to say simply to move on to the next city. People understand and separate real from fake. So if you want to have any chance in convincing people on the importance of animal rights, you really need to be a flawless as possible. This way, they won’t be pointing figures at you (or at least those won’t be that many.) Trust me: it will make your discussions and debates a lot easier if you are unique.
Now, I know that what I said is a little bit harsh on the animal activists. Not everyone is making careers out of animal rights just for the sake of it. In fact, most people (because animal rights is kind of a new movement) started off as volunteers and did this purely in their free time, but later saw the importance of doing it full time. So a lot of the activists you will see out there, are true to themselves and really care about their cause. They aren’t being paid professionals to say great things about animal rights. As I said before: pay me enough money and I can pretty much say almost anything to almost anyone. So to all of you people that are true to yourself and aren’t doing this just for the almighty dollar, I salute you and would love to hear from you. We may do a webinar in which I invite a guest to speak about these things and maybe give you guys a few more tools you can use for your community.
For anyone thinking to go into animal activism: know what you are getting into. If you are going to do it for the money, let me tell you two things:
- It doesn’t pay that well
- There are easier ways to make a lot of money and this ain’t one of them
If you want to do this because you feel it’s something good for animals, then make sure you are working your tail off in your day job so you can have enough resources and time to get working on this. Truth be told, we need a lot more animal loving people. We have a bunch of phonies that just take up space and we can’t afford to keep them on our backs for much longer. Hollywood animal activists (actors) are a good example of that. They don’t really support their causes. They just say they do, because they understand their viewers are more sensitive towards this topic. So I think we all need to cleanup the mess and maybe drain the swamp that exists within animal activism. Let’s get some true people, some people that will work their tail off no matter what, in order to provide a more secure and a better future for animals (and ultimately humans too.)
I congratulate you all for making it to the end of this important article. So many great things were discussed and I know there are a lot of young people out there seeking for the proper advice. Hopefully this has helped you in some way. Come back for more as I’m only getting started.
Appreciate you guys!