Way back in the 1970s, I was eating a steak, and I looked down, and for the first time it suddenly looked like flesh to me - like a dead creature. In a flash, I realized that every time I ate any kind of meat, something had been killed for me, and I stopped eating all animals, not just cows and pigs but chickens and fish.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a profound realization about the moral implications of eating meat.
Joanna Lumley's quote expresses a pivotal moment of consciousness where she recognizes the life and death associated with consuming meat. This realization led her to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle, illustrating a transformation in her perspective on animals and the ethics of eating. It underscores the concept that our food choices are intertwined with the lives of other beings, prompting a deeper awareness of the consequences of our consumption habits.
In practice
During a speech on animal rights, I mentioned Lumley's transformative experience as a reason to reconsider meat consumption.
My mother early on taught us to respect all animals, and I mean all animals - not just cats and dogs but rats and snakes and spiders and fish and wildlife, so I really grew up believing they are just like us and just as deserving of consideration.
I've never been interested enough to have a career trajectory. I've never had any ambition or thought of what I should be doing or had any idea of what I'd like to do. Never. And still don't. And if something comes along, I say 'Fine.'
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
Not, not mine: it's somebody else's wound; I could never have borne it. So take the thing that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground; whisk the lamps away.
Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.
What is important is the moment of opening a life and feeling it touch--with an electric hiss and cry--this speckled mineral sphere, our present world.
The one in front of the gun lives forever
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.