consonance

“I’ve come to believe that all life is precious”

This quote from The Walking Dead has stuck with me for the past decade. It’s simple, and there is a lot of truth to it.

At the time I first heard it, I didn’t really believe it– I didn’t practice it.

But I learned to. My cognitive dissonance broke and I came to understand, and live, that all life is precious.

We live in a world of hate and cruelty towards other living beings. Humans are ‘othered’ for the color of their skin or for how they identify. And animals are slaughtered by the millions for the unsustainable meat industry.

I live my life with the understanding that all life is precious.

I want everyone to be able to have the same expectation of human rights regardless of the color of their skin, or how they identify, regardless of their biological sex, or what part of the world they happened to have been born in.

I want every animal to not be abused and exploited.

I want to live in a world where living beings are treated as though their life is precious.

Instead people allow hate to consume them– their hunger to make them ignorant of the damage they cause.

We live in a world where the elite few lord over us and control the media. They control the narrative. The masses are fed hate for their neighbors, and they unquestioningly accept these things as facts.

But why is it that the few get to choose the direction of the many? Who are they to decide who lives and who dies? Or who has rights and who does not?

It used to be that the kings led their armies personally into battle. Now we have clowns sitting on their thrones far from danger, directing the serfs to fight their wars for them—to die for them.

That is what we are–serfs. Doing their bidding.

I wonder how much the world would be different if every war, every battle was led personally by the person calling the shots. It is easy enough to say that someone doesn’t deserve to live when you sit comfortably atop a throne, but would they be so quick to doom another if they had to be personally invested in their death wishes?

Would we see so many bombs dropped if they had to risk being on the receiving end?

Would the average politician be capable of pulling the trigger themselves? Would they be able to live with the regret and possible PTSD that comes from taking another’s life?

Of course, there is no difference between them taking a life with their own hands or ordering someone else to do their bidding…except, their cognitive dissonance.

Our brains have this magical defense of self preservation – capable of burying information deep in the recesses of our minds or completely forget it, so long as it protects our world view. Our minds are capable of collecting a mass of information, but still not drawing a line to the most obvious answer if it is against our world view.

Our brains resist regret, or wrong doing. It forces us into a denial, and we are ignorant that this even occurs. This is why we can have someone say that they love animals, yet, they could be sitting right in front of you eating a burger and not realize the irony in their statement.

And if I correct that friend– tell them that they are eating an animal despite having claimed to love animals, then suddenly I am the asshole.

It just goes back to me wanting to live in a world where all life is precious. If that means I need to call out cognitive dissonance or hatred then so be it.

It kills me seeing all of the needless killing that occurs, humans and animals alike. It kills me how much inequality is spread just because someone is different in some inconsequential way.

I just want to be able to exist, and I want other living beings to be afforded the same opportunity.

I don’t think I’m asking for too much here.

I’ll continue to live my life with the belief that all life is precious. I just hope the rest of the world can grow to understand and appreciate this simple truth as I did. My secret was learning empathy.

“You don’t have to believe your life is precious, but that all life is precious.”