I discovered when we suffer, we suffer as equals. And in their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig, is a bear...is a boy.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the shared experience of suffering among all beings, regardless of species or identity.
Philip Wollen's quote reflects on the universal nature of suffering, suggesting that all creatures, whether human or animal, experience pain similarly. It calls for empathy and compassion towards all living beings, highlighting that the capacity for suffering is a common thread that connects us, transcending traditional boundaries of species and identity.
In practice
During a speech at an animal rights conference.
When I travel around the world, I see that poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in their arms. And we feed it to livestock. So we can eat a steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime? Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a starving child. When I look into her eyes, should I be silent? The Earth can produce enough for everyone’s need. But not enough for everyone’s greed.
We torture and kill two billion sentient living beings every week. 10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one, and we are now facing the sixth mass extinction in cosmological history. If any other organism did this, a biologist would consider them a virus.
We obey people we don't trust, to buy things we don't need, to impress people we don't like, using money we don't have, for gratifications that don't last, killing animals we don't hate, for pleasures that don't satisfy, dreaming of a life we don't deserve, and praying for an afterlife that doesn't exist, we are a stupid species
In their capacity to feel pain and fear, a pig is a dog is a bear is a boy.
There is no holy life. There is no war between good and evil. There is no sin and no redemption. None of these things matter to the real you. But they all matter hugely to the false you, the one who believes in the separate self. You have tried to take your separate self, with all its loneliness and anxiety and pride, to the door of enlightenment. But it will never go through, because it is a ghost.
When some state or other offered Alexander a part of its territory and half of all its property he told them that 'he hadn't come to Asia with the intention of accepting whatever they cared to give him, but of letting them keep whatever he chose to leave them.' Philosophy, likewise, tells all other occupations: 'It's not my intention to accept whatever time is leftover from you; you shall have, instead, what I reject.' Give your whole mind to her.
For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length--and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.
What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing
Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
This is the first thing I have understood:_x000D_ Time is the echo of an axe within a wood.
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