Words Never Mean What We Want Them

Do You Eat Chicken Because You Are Familiar With The Scientific Literature On Them And Have Decided That Their Suffering Doesn't Matter, Or Do You Do It Because It Tastes Good?

However Much We Obfuscate Or Ignore It, We Know That The Factory Farm Is Inhumane In The Deepest Sense Of The Word. And We Know That There Is Something That Matters In A Deep Way About The Lives We Create For The Living Beings Most Within Our Power. Our Response To The Factory Farm Is Ultimately A Test Of How We Respond To The Powerless, To The Most Distant, To The Voiceless--it Is A Test Of How We Act When No One Is Forcing Us To Act One Way Or Another.

To Remember My Values, I Need To Lose Certain Tastes And Find Other Handles For The Memories That They Once Helped Me Carry.

I Do Think Ordinariness Is, In A Way, The Enemy, But Not Ordinariness As The Opposite Of Flamboyance.

When I Was A Girl, My Life Was Music That Was Always Getting Louder. Everything Moved Me. A Dog Following A Stranger. That Made Me Feel So Much. A Calendar That Showed The Wrong Month. I Could Have Cried Over It. I Did. Where The Smoke From A Chimney Ended. How An Overturned Bottle Rested At The Edge Of A Table. I Spent My Life Learning To Feel Less. Every Day I Felt Less. Is That Growing Old? Or Is It Something Worse? You Cannot Protect Yourself From Sadness Without Protecting Yourself From Happiness.