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| (Image: Collective Evolution) |
The thing is, when it comes to animals, I get emotionally invested to a ridiculous level. It's the garden-variety label people like to throw a round: 'an animal lover'.
It's one of the reasons I can't look at any graphic videos/pictures of animals in pain or in circumstances where they are rendered helpless. It's the reason I walked the path to veganism, slowly over the past decade. Over the years, I made the connection to meat, and then a year and half ago to dairy. But this post is not about why I turned vegan. It is about identifying potent sensitivities we all have and regularising them to other issues that need our collective attention.
A couple months ago, a situation near my house that involved dogs was making me emotionally miserable. I won't go into the situation because it could trigger others, and the point of this blog is finding paths to emotional productivity within a world that triggers us.
Anyway, the situation was on my face 24/7, so one day I shut down. I didn't have the headspace to fight the situation, I was too emotionally torn about it. I couldn't do anything except think about it and make my self more miserable. Anxiety kicked in followed my depression. I stayed in bed for almost 2 days. I couldn't go to work and I literally sobbed one entire night away.
My boyfriend came up to me and said: 'This isn't helping the situation and it certainly isn't helping you, your emotions have to be channeled into something that can make both the sitation and yourself better.'
While words alone can't stop you from 'feeling' a certain way, I knew one thing to be true. And that was that I could so something to make it better, even if it was small, even if it did not solve the problem entirely. There are issues that can be blown out of proportion in your mind (with good reason), and there are issue that can't be technically solved. But the way you work with that emotion? That can be up for scrutiny and you can help yourself to a reasonable extent, that is if your mental health is otherwise healthy.
There are two important things that this experience taught me:
1. Not everybody will be emotionally invested in animals. I certainly am not triggered half as much when I hear/read about human issues.
2. But most people are emotionally invested in something: abuse, caste/class injustices, politics, a family situation, a personal loss, and other broad spectrum issues that render us feeling helpless and stewing about the unfairness of the world.
It also taught me 2 things about our responses to emotional triggers. People usually resort to one of the two responses :
1. Shutting Down/Being overwhelmingly Sad : This cripples you and makes everything else feel as sad. Much like how I responded.
2. Anger and Self-Righteousness: I've also been guilty of using this response to not only veganism but other social justice issues. This is easy to spot on social media. When it comes to animal rights and human rights, a lot of anger and blame results in a unshakable force that provokes us to show people how the world ought to be. You find yourself pointing out the hypocrisies of the world and why it's plain stupid that people are so apathetic.
Perhaps guilty is the wrong word. it's after all an authentic response. But my intent is to work past these responses to not only better us emotionally but to make tangible change.
There are two things that both these responses hold in common:
1. It's detrimental to the individual
2. It lowers the possibility for actual change.
Shutting down and feeling sad about it makes you look at the world with hopeless eyes and keeps your headspace filled up with angst and sadness. It cripples your ability to make your time on earth count towards things you are so passionate about.
Anger keeps feeding anger. You'll attract more people who can't see past the rage and injustice. The will get angry for you, and that's what keeps your own anger sustained. This does two things: it alienates people further from caring and secondly it ultimately lets you view the entire world with those glasses on. You'll find enough reasons to carry that anger everywhere.
Like I said, I've used both responses for issues that affect me (shutting down for animal-related injustices and anger for human-related injustices). Over the years, I've experienced the utter futility of both. I've found myself walking away from possibilities of small changes I'am capable of.
One profound understanding occurred during this time. Obviously not everyone is triggered the way I am about animals. But there are people who feel the same intensity of emotion about other issues. This gives me a platform to act with added productivity when it comes to educating myself and understanding those other injustices. That lets me see that I have to look at the world holistically and
try to cover other bases of injustices as well.
You as an individual could react to specific kinds of injustices in different ways: anger/shutting down at varying levels. And once you find a club of people who will support that through the same kind of dialogue/comments/hand holding will unintentionally support this undesirable state of existing.
I don't mean to discredit pain, sadness and anger. They are very valid emotions. If nothing fails to hurt/anger you then we'd be living in a world that had no organisations, movements, books, speeches, and resources for humanity to grow and thrive. But when it's all you can do, then you're stuck in a situation that helps no one, much less your self.
On a truly philosophical level, you'd want to help yourself first. You are the body and mind that takes in the world in a unique way, and your responses to it are solely because you exist. Your wellbeing is the most important factor to change. Your ability to keep pushing yourself to know more, discuss, and take 'action' on various micro and macro levels count towards collective evolution.
Make no mistake about it, collective evolution towards a better world is the ONLY way we are going to get to a better place. We are riding on a lot of peoples' sadness and anger from the past in order to be living with the privileges we do now. But know that sustained change depends on empathy for a world that is complex. A world where there are no real back and white issues but a merging of history, culture, class, politics, and human curiosity. All the evil in the world sure seems to poke through the lens of 'one' potent issue, but the truth is, these evils are reflections of our every day. Our every day choices, views, and hopes. It's also the reflection of our own apathy for some things. There is no one answer for a ideal world much less an understanding of what an ideal world is.
You have your gut and instinct to follow. You have resources to educate yourself on how your choices hurt humans and animals. You have choices on how you want to respond to them. Being an observer as well counts, because you sometimes you need to sit back and view the world as a whole before you can take a particular action. If you start to look at the world as a place where you can perform random short bursts of unexpected kindness chances are that's the exciting headspace you will live in. If you start to look at the world with the idea that you could use your own social privileges and access to knowledge to learn more, understand more, and do things that you feel add up to a better world, then undoubtedly that's how you will think and feel about the world.
The world is not black and white. But your emotional responses often can be. Search for that perfect blend where you feel peace inside and reflect it on the outside. The bottom line? If you feel one potent emotion/response to a social issue, you care, and within this emotion lies your power to do something extraordinarily beautiful.
P.S
A note on mental health: While I've discussed emotions here, I don't intend to minimise the reality of mental illness. Depression and anxiety are real clinical problems that one can't always be 'talked out of'. I myself suffer from mild to moderate depression. To that effect this blog is primarily a nudge on perspective for people who are otherwise healthy in mind and body.
