Way back in the 1970s, I was eating a steak, and I looked down, and for the first time it suddenly looked like flesh to me - like a dead creature. In a flash, I realized that every time I ate any kind of meat, something had been killed for me, and I stopped eating all animals, not just cows and pigs but chickens and fish.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a profound realization about the moral implications of eating meat.
Joanna Lumley's quote expresses a pivotal moment of consciousness where she recognizes the life and death associated with consuming meat. This realization led her to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle, illustrating a transformation in her perspective on animals and the ethics of eating. It underscores the concept that our food choices are intertwined with the lives of other beings, prompting a deeper awareness of the consequences of our consumption habits.
In practice
During a speech on animal rights, I mentioned Lumley's transformative experience as a reason to reconsider meat consumption.
My mother early on taught us to respect all animals, and I mean all animals - not just cats and dogs but rats and snakes and spiders and fish and wildlife, so I really grew up believing they are just like us and just as deserving of consideration.
I've never been interested enough to have a career trajectory. I've never had any ambition or thought of what I should be doing or had any idea of what I'd like to do. Never. And still don't. And if something comes along, I say 'Fine.'
My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious.
I could not help but think that somewhere along the way we had missed what was radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable.
The Convention thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.
The game gives us a satisfaction that Life denies us. And for the Chess player, the success which crowns his work, the great dispeller of sorrows, is named 'combination'.
One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. When one feels such pleasure in non-existence, one's inclination can be completely satisfied only by completely ceasing to exist.
For although a man is judged by his actions, by what he has said and done, a man judges himself by what he is willing to do, by what he might have said, or might have done—a judgment that is necessarily hampered, not only by the scope and limits of his imagination, but by the ever-changing measure of his doubt and self-esteem.
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