...Alone and afraid...

"..alone and afraid in a world I never made.." comes from A. E. Houseman. You can read the full work containing this phrase here.

The video is of a Canadian dairy cow that has reached a point in her life where the human or group of humans that had her enslaved have decided she is no longer "profitable" in terms of the amount of milk her body is able to produce so she is awaiting "sale".... after that sale she will be killed and her exhausted flesh will be used to make something some human somewhere can order at a fast food place.

The video is brief (about 37 seconds) and only shows this one cow person...there is no violence shown. As you look at her think about the children she was forced to give birth to who were then taken away from her, think about her grief, her suffering....her life used up so human animals could make money and drink baby cow food (milk) or eat sugared up frozen baby cow food (ice cream) or use the fats from baby cow food (butter) to spread on their toast with jam.

Her life, taken from her...now she awaits the ending of that existence. It may be that it will be a relief for her...I don't know. She is likely only 5 or 6 years old and not near the end of her natural lifespan...I don't know her thoughts or her feelings...but I can guess.

Look at her and know that she is where she is and feeling how she feels and looking like she does because the nice and kind and clean and smiling humans go to the "dairy" section of their "supermarket" and pick up some "milk" or some "butter" or to the frozen food section and pick up some "ice cream" or to the "custard" place for a treat. Those nice and kind and clean and smiling humans who would not be cruel to an "animal", who would not harm an "animal", who would not neglect an "animal".

Somehow all those nice and kind and clean and smiling humans, only wanting something that "tastes good" end up being responsible for this forlorn and sad and hurt and exhausted and doomed cow person's situation.



I look at her and know that for years I drank "milk" and ate "ice cream" and spread "butter" with virtually carefree abandon and thoughtlessness...thoughtless at least as far as thinking about who was actually paying the price for the drinking and eating and spreading. If the being that the "milk" came from crossed my mind at all it was only in passing and only...maybe...that cows "give" milk and it didn't hurt her. For the cow babies taken from her no thoughts occurred...they didn't exist in my universe. Ignorance was bliss...for me...but not for her, not for her children.

I didn't think, I didn't consider, I didn't wonder, I didn't investigate...and I didn't feel responsible...what was there to be responsible for? And she and her children paid daily for my ignorance and carelessness and I blithely drank and ate and spread misery and suffering and horror...on her and her babies.

The world lied to me, corporations lied to me, 4-H lied to me, FFA lied to me, farmers lied to me, my family lied to me, and I lied to me. We all said it is ok to "use" animals, we all said it is "necessary", we all said it is not cruel, we all said it is "humane", we all said "don't worry about it", we all said "they don't have feelings", we all said "they don't care".

Look at the video, look at her exhaustion and despair and hopelessness and see the result of our lies.

I can't tell you how painful it is for me to watch her...but it is appropriate that I feel horrid...it was because of me and others like me that she ended up where she is. I was doing things that caused pain and misery but not feeling the consequences of my actions...she was feeling those and she was doing nothing to cause the pain and misery she experienced. It was me, us that were causing it and it is fitting that I now feel some small measure of the pain I caused and it is only a small measure...I can never appreciate the depths of her suffering...I can never take it from her and place it on me...which is where it belongs.

She represents a segment of my "breaking the world". And I shall never be able to repair that segment, only to regret it...and to acknowledge it by showing this video of her suffering....her being broken.

If you are still participating in causing this kind of misery, please stop, no one has the right to inflict this kind of suffering on someone that is innocent of doing any harm ... who only wants to live her own life how she wants to. Who only wants what each of us want.