The Picture of Love and Acceptance
I often wonder if we have to learn compassion, or if we are born with it. When I look to examples from our living friends, I think I have come to believe that we are all born with an innate capacity for compassion, acceptance, and unconditional love. Yet, by a very early age, most of us are conditioned to ignore and suppress these admirable traits. We learn that those that are not like us are not as important. And we definitely learn that our non-human relatives are "just animals" - disposable, unfeeling, unaware beings.
What better way to teach your new child compassion than to teach him to love, care for and respect other living creatures? What exactly will children be taught when the responsibility of caring for a pet becomes too much trouble? The lessons that I think most children will learn are 1) animals are disposable, 2) animals have no feelings that we need to consider, 3) taking responsibility for other living creatures is optional. These are the lessons that teach children to "unlearn" the inherent compassion that we are all born with.
We often consider ourselves as humans as the most evolved species on the planet. Yet no other animal kills other animals for convenience or expediency. No other species exploits hundreds of other species for their own benefit, with often little regard for providing a mutual benefit. And no other species teaches its young that other living things are disposable.
What I wish for everyone that reads this blog entry is that you feel a pang of compassion reminiscent of a child's, before the unlearning process began. And that you feel a tug of responsibility that comes only from knowing that you have no other choice but to act. We need all of you. They need us.
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