Piecing my heart together
03.30.08
music: Queen - "Bohemian Rhapsody"
mood: Happy
I haven't written in a while! But basically it's been the same kind of thing day after day... pretty monotonous.
However! Josh and I got our tattoo (FINALLY) last week. You can see lots of pictures in the Gallery. It's a heart made out of puzzle pieces. I'm sort of wanting to cover up my rainbow tattoo, just because the colors bled as it healed and it lost its quality. Morgan, the artist who did our hearts, informed me that it would be easier to cover up than to fix. I want to get an animal, perhaps a panda... but in order to look really good like my others, it would need to be fairly large, and I'm not sure how I would feel about a visible tattoo that I couldn't cover up without long sleeves. Sometimes I do feel like my tattooing won't be complete until I have a large tattoo that really represents my core. I don't want to have small tattoos scattered over my body because then I will become like the back of my car - a collage of bumper stickers. I'd rather have something huge and intricate like a rainforest scene... something nature related... maybe on my ribs or one of my legs. Of course something like this would be very costly and take hours and multiple sittings to complete, and I'm in no position for that now. Hopefully in my future before I'm too old, I can get a tattoo like this, and then I will be complete.
My spring break just ended, which is sad. But there are less than 2 months of school left, and then I get to embark on a summer internship! So no real break.... but it should be another great experience, like Greenpeace was last summer.
Another thing I have been doing lately is volunteering at a dog rescue organization called BARK. It's been so fun. On Friday I helped take 10 puppies and 4 older dogs to the Prevent a Litter and SPCA to be spayed and neutered. Although one of the dogs had massive diarrhea on the way there, it was still fun. I got to hold a small puppy named Bernard for a good 20 minutes, and I wanted to take him home! I hate not having animals in the dorms! I feel so removed from the important things around here.
09:38 PM EST
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Specieism
03.03.08
music: REM - "It's the End of the World As We Know It"
mood: Curious
Should we look at nature as having value in and of itself or should we protect it because of its value to us? I believe the former... essentially biocentrism. It's not like Earth had no value before we walked on it. We're just unique in that we can think about those kinds of things.
Maybe this is why I've become so cynical about humans these days. I guess being so busy and absorbed in environmental ethical thoughts has removed me a lot from our popular culture, and I've been losing my appreciation for it. All of my studies this semester focus around nature or politics... (the latter of which used to be so intriguing to me, but now I am finding myself bored with all of the senseless conflict in government). Let's all just adopt anarchy and live on communes or something.
I miss being with friends... I think I'm losing my connection to them again. But sometimes I just don't care. Well, one friend decided to distance himself from me because of his new group of friends who I guess share his interests more. I wish I had friends that shared my interests... but they are all so apathetic to things like vegetarianism. I don't understand how anybody can be that way. I am not objecting completely to the consumption of meat in general, but the processes by which it is produced these days are horrific. It's like concentration camps and genocide of animals. Specieism.
They say we are more intelligent, that we
deserve to take over the earth because we are
capable. Well, I am completely capable of taking a gun and going on a shooting spree, but do I
deserve to do that? Is it ethical? Being intelligent involves using moral judgment. Humans have plenty of that when it comes to other members of our species, for the most part. You know, the "Golden Rule" and such. But as a species we are completely lacking in ethical consideration for other species. I'm not saying we can't kill animals for food, but who deemed it necessary to coop them up, pump them with hormones, force feed them, chop off their beaks, slit their throats while they are hanging upsidedown slowly dying? Oh, right, OVERPOPULATION. Yes, we
can take over the earth, but has that really benefited anyone in the long run, in the grand scheme of the planet, other than making a few segments of a few cultures fat and wealthy?
I am very very grateful that Josh shares similar views with me. I don't understand for the life of me how I used to be in serious relationships with people who ate factory farmed meat without consequence. I guess I just ignored it. But these days, it's so hard for me to ignore other people eating factory farmed meat... even people I love and care about - they seem so cruel to me in this sense. So it's even harder for me to understand how they can ignore it themselves. Please, can someone explain this viewpoint to me? Is it simply ignoring it so you don't have to deal with it? Or do you just not care about animal suffering in general?
10:42 PM EST
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Laura Lee:: I am vegan. I am tattooed. I love the earth. I believe in love regardless of gender or race. I will spend my life fighting oppression and spreading compassion. Sometimes my dogs are my favorite people in the world. My family has a second home on the big island of Hawaii, and that is where my heart is. I wish I could fly away...
