Wisdoms from the Journey - Vol VIII (Jan thru Oct 2014)

Calling all Trolls …
(01/22/2014)
“To truly live is to war with trolls.” ~ Henrik Ibsen
Yesterday, during a rather intense online chat about the myths meat-eaters
use to justify treating animals as mere commodities vs. the merits of living as a
vegan (i.e. seeing animals as equally worthy sentient beings), it finally happened: I
was called -- among other names too surly to mention here -- a "Troll".
Now, when it first happened, I was more than a bit taken aback. After all, I
had learned that a "Troll" was a negative label, describing someone who makes
comments in chat-rooms & blog-threads & Facebook posts that are purposefully
designed to annoy or insult or offend. Of course, I knew that I wasn't doing this
at all; I knew that I was simply trying my best to calmly illuminate the oft-ignored
facts surrounding an oft-ignored modern-day tragedy ... And shortly after exiting
the conversation, I realized the delicious irony of the situation: that a meat-eater
calling a vegan a "Troll" for standing up for the rights of enslaved and tortured
animals is kind of like a white bigot calling Martin Luther King a racist for telling
others to treat blacks with Respect & Dignity … In summation, the insults that
were thrown at me by my necrovorian comrade were nothing short of ridiculous,
and I went to bed with a smile on my face -- with heartfelt Empathy &
Compassion for his pain and his confusion, of course, and yet with a gentle smile
on my face nonetheless.
And then this morning I awoke with a different thought -- a thought that
started to make last night's encounter more profound than profane ... Essentially I
awoke to the realization that what we might need more than anything else at this
time of teetering -- that what we might need more than anything else at this time
when everything beautiful and everything ultimately worthwhile hangs in the
balance; when humanity's very long-term existence hangs by a thread – that what
we actually need these days … is MORE TROLLS! … Not the "trolls" that exist
merely to antagonize and manipulate and insult and lambast, mind you. We most
certainly already have far more than enough of those denizens of discord in our
lives. No, what we truly need now are people with the integrity to reflect another
trait of Trolls -- namely, the courage to speak out about things that matter; the
courage to not only discuss matters of injury & injustice with friends & family, but
to do so openly and overtly with those actually doing the perpetrating; the courage
to meet the enemy on his or her own turf and ... respectfully-yet-resolutely ... stand
up for what is Right.
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