Thoughts on Human Impacts – Zine Contribution by Caitlin

This is a copy of a written piece that was contributed by Caitlin to the second issue of our zine (transcript below). Thank you ❤

 

CW: Mention of sexual violence; author’s edit:  The word ‘rape’ from the original essay is replaced by ‘exploit’.

 

Human impacts

We live in a world of excess. We look up to those who have it all, big cars, posh houses, fancy food and lavish parties. We have all been brainwashed into the idea that to be happy we must be rich, successful and beautiful. Essentially we have all become victims of our own aspiration, slaving away at our desks day and night to pay for the next great expenditure, a new car to match our neighbours new BMW and other status symbols so we can appear like we have it all. These are perfect symptoms of a society which is lost and doesn’t know where it is headed. We have lost touch: with nature, as we spend our time inside, our friends as we never leave our desks to pay for the next TV and even ourselves, as we try and portray to our neighbours that we are successful and our ‘friends’ that we are perfect on social media.

This is the aim of the rich and powerful the top as this keeps them in pocket and keeping us forever miserable and wanting more. What is being conveniently hidden from us is the impact this is having on the planet, other people and the animals. As we get richer we consume more, we get even greedier and our taste gets crueller. We demand cheap clothing which is the result of child labour in poor countries, we demand more materials as we buy more and we exploit the oceans, land and animals to satisfy our taste buds. We have all fallen victim to the idea that we need this amazing thing, whatever it may be and when we have it all, all of our problems will; be solved, we will finally be happy. But we won’t, we never will. For as long as we base our self-worth on material objects and shallow appearances, we will never be truly happy. We will carry on raping mother earth and all of her beauty for the sake of selfishness and greed.

However as vegans, environmentalists, feminists, anti-speciesists or however you chose to identify, we have the power to change this. We have the power to end this pointless greed. This chaos that has ensued, we can take power away from the major cooperation’s and take back who we truly are. We can take back mother earth and work with her to bring back our rainforests and finally find peace; we can stop pointless discrimination against each other and live a peaceful existence with the animals we can liberate. We can take our world back and our lives and then, and only then will we be truly happy.