The Lincoln Log

Imagine going through everyday life not knowing what is to become of you. Every day, you sit around and never use your muscles. And after a time, your miserable life comes to and end and you are slaughtered. In that moment your true reason for living shines through- you have lived your whole life to be killed. Following your passing, a good number of things can happen to your remains. One possibility is that part of your body was chopped up, sliced into circular pieces, and then was delivered to various eating facilities. At one of your stops, part of your ice cold carcass is slammed on a hot grill and after a short time, what was once part of you is now burned to a crisp and served between two pieces of bread wrapped in paper to some kid eager to eat his lunch. Not exactly picturesque huh?

Luckily for us humans, such a life is not in store for us. For many of our unfortunate animal friends, that is all there is for them. Such brutalities are unforgivable, and yet numerous amounts of livestock are killed just so we can enjoy their flesh for our everyday meat. These injustices go without any consideration towards the animals whose whole life has been completely shattered.

Consider the lifestyle of a vegetarian. The complete elimination of processed disgusting meats also eliminates the fatalities that go with them. That means no risk of high cholesterol, diabetes, excessive weight gain, etc. With all those aspects taken out of one’s life, it is predictable that life expectancy is to increase.

A Buddhist outlook on life actually forbids the consumption of meat. Though I myself am not a Buddhist by religion, I see that the idea displays a good point. Eating something that once lived makes your body impure. Most often, the meat that we buy from such places as fast food restaurants is so processed that we are basically poisoning our body. Such repeated acts over a long period of time will result in a short and unhealthy life.

As most statistics would say, teens nowadays are getting more and more heavy. Due to a lack of physical activities, teens are often stereotyped as lazy slobs. This is probably because most of the time teens have are spent in front of some kind of screen, be it a computer screen, movie screen, or cell phone screen. In order to counter such stereotypes teens should practice a healthy lifestyle by cutting the over processed foods, and instead eat their veggies and other wholesome food.

Life is such a terrible thing to waste, and yet the value of an animal’s life is to us is should not be indifferent. So really, by saving the life of a cute calf or young chick, we are not only saving them, but we are also saving ourselves from many illnesses. In addition, imagine if their life was ours. Would we really want to be deprived of natural rights to freedom?