Vegans Know The Animal Perspective - Empathy Trumps Civility

On my Provoked blog I made an entry that mentions viewing history in an animal perspective.  Now I know that what Steve Best spoke of and what I'm about to write are different - Still, the idea of viewing life or circumstances through a subjective viewpoint brings these two ideas together for me on this post.


So while the memories are still fresh, I wanted to tell of this minor surgery I recently had done to my shoulder... And my "animal" experiences during the time I was "processed".


First, a disclaimer - I'm not one who has had many medical operations or procedures... The only other cause for me to "go under a knife" was the removal of my tonsils as a kid - So, I grant that any experience with being in the vulnerable physical control of others is new to me. Perhaps this is why my "animal insights" were so intense?


After check in I was fitted with assorted equipment that would monitor vitals, keep tabs on my breathing, heart rate, etc. While I was on the gurney surrounded by strangers who were touching, (poking and prodding) me, I couldn't help but relate that this is what a nonhuman must feel like - Somewhat helpless and apprehensive to say the least.  Still, I was there with consent and had the comfort of rationality to ease any distress.  Yes, nonhumans left in the clutches of man endure much anxiety.


Once I was undressed and "prepped" the cluster of staff and aids wheeled me away from my waiting station and halfway to O.R. the last injection I was given put me out...  Of course I was never awake for the worst of it... But somewhere in my mind I knew that my animal friends were not so fortunate in their ordeal with the unfamiliar, the frightening and the torturous.


It would be a short time afterward before I became lucid... And in that in between state of being half aware and half drugged, many people respond in different ways.  Behind the curtains at other post-op stations one could hear a woman in a fret over lost keys, an elderly gentleman was arguing about a parking ticket... And I even heard someone cry over a no-show prom date - Yet none of us was younger than in our 40's.  

But my semi-conscious wailing was even more unique and unexpected... So much so that they called my husband in pre-maturely to "settle me down".  What was I ranting about?  The animals of course!  The caged, imprisoned ones.  The trapped ones in chains... The ones suffocated at birth... The ones dragged away from their mothers.  The ones that were beaten in factory farms and the ones delivered to the slaughterhouses.  Yep, those all too familiar desperate scenes that have shaped my outlook for the last few years was vehemently vocalized - Even through the disorientation of drugs and anesthetics.


Now... It's not odd that this would be at the forefront of my mind - I've heard many say that even in dreams the plight of nonhumans is an inescapable issue.  But what is note worthy is the reaction of the nurses and staff that were my guides from one fuzzy reality into the socially condoned (fuzzy) one... The "civilized" one, where one dares not talk about such things - Especially not with unchecked emotion and blunt truth.


So it is the conduct of the staff from then on, revealing our culture's disconnect with their own sense of reality, that I write about... 

Prior to my surgery everyone was personable, considerate and attentive.  Yet afterwards as I was being re-examined and made ready-for-release, I sensed an abrupt, aloof, callous distance from the very same people I was joking and smiling with a few hours before... It was obvious I became a different person to them - I became one who was a "threat" to their false-notion that humans are kind to animals... And I exposed that the harms that come to nonhumans really are institutionalized brutality.  And that not only is murdering the innocent chronic in our culture, but pragmatically buried away from our "sensitivities".
  
Yes, my genuine concern bled through my un-awake state... And it shed a light on to their indoctrinations. It revealed cruelties habituated from dead hearts and/or blind minds.  Even a week later, my once cordial physician had an unusual air of terseness.  My imagination? Perhaps, but doubtful as it's no secret that patient reactions before and after surgery - comical or sorrowful - are discussed among professionals.


And now, as my arm heals and I literally and figuratively move in different ways... My experiences of being a subject, placed in submissive circumstances, "man handled" and then marginalized only reaffirms what I already knew about our nonhuman friends.  That what they experience at our will and for our whim, as an everyday "norm", is a relentless trauma to them. Historically the whole of what the animal nations have tragically endured puts them, in my eyes, ever more deserving of the respect we now withhold.


Is there an outside hope that someone listening to my incoherent concerns decided to think or investigate further? Better yet... Is there someone here reading this now making the connection?  Please, if you are not already on their side... If you are not already vegan... I urge and implore you - That now is the time to be so. You have no idea how not doing so violates these very innocent beings...