WHEN I SAY I LOVE ANIMALS… MY STRUGGLE BETWEEN CONSCIENCE AND TRADITION

There are many things in life I am uncertain about, the older I get, the more I realize how difficult it is to remain consistent in one’s beliefs under the inevitable passage of time and transformation. Yet one thread has always been constant, never broken, following me from my earliest childhood, and that is my need to protect the unprotected, to be a voice for those who have none—above all, for animals.

I remember being five or six years old when my father brought home two fish in a transparent plastic bag, where they were still moving, struggling to breathe. I knew they were dying—and that they had been brought to become our dinner. Although, from a child’s perspective, I did not question the idea that their life might be more important than five minutes of my meal, I felt that something was wrong with the fact that our dinner was breathing and desperately fighting for its life. I secretly poured more water into the bag and added a little salt, believing with naïve logic that this would ease their suffering. Decades passed, but I never forgot their struggle for breath.

The next important memory takes me back to the summers we spent in the countryside—a beautiful, untamed place that was much livelier then than it is today. In those years, my grandmother on my father’s side cared for many animals, including cows and calves, which we children found endlessly dear and fascinating. Every child feels a special bond with the young of animals—whether chicks, calves, lambs, or bunnies. I still remember our clumsily attempt to “revive” a dead rabbit our dog had carried in, and then, realizing we couldn’t help him, burying him with carrots as a kind of farewell tribute.

But what I remember most vividly is the bitter thought that came with one particular moment, a fragile, innocent calf we fed and petted daily, always beside its mother. One day it was given sugar cubes and affection; a few days later, our yard echoed with its desperate cries for life and mercy. And yes, animals cry just like us and they shed tears. I was horrified, and though my memory of the details is blurry, I cannot forget the blood washing down the stones in the yard once it was all over. And all for meat I refused to eat.

Out of respect for my upbringing and the rules of adults, I couldn’t express my shock or confusion. I knew I wasn’t surrounded by “bad” people. They weren’t monsters. They would have said simply: “This is the way it’s always been.” Yet secretly I resented everyone involved. From that day on, my idea of a family farm soured: where tenderness had once lived, cruelty had taken its place.

Since then, and to this very day, I have never eaten veal, but I won’t lie, I have eaten other meat, once again accepting the norms and “tradition” that managed to normalize and suppress within me that feverish feeling that we are doing harm to the innocent. Even if not directly—because the vast majority of us would not be able to kill the animals that end up on our plates—we remain accomplices. Precisely this fact, so often cited by consumers of the meat industry, that they are not killing with their own hands, does not make things any easier or better. On the contrary, it somehow feels even worse, and more cowardly. And even when talk turns to a “quick death” or a “minimal level of suffering,” the truth remains the same: killing is still killing, and a life is taken.

All of this has stayed with me, even though decades have passed. But especially in the past few years (very likely due to connecting with others who feel the same, as well as certain dreams, I believe our subconscious always haunts us through dreams)—the old feeling has begun to obsess me once again: that our satisfaction of a full stomach is not worth the fear, torment, and suffering that precede it. I reluctantly admit that it was only this year that I completely removed all meat from my diet—including fish. I regret not having done it sooner. Meat was never the main part of my diet, but still, like my family and friends, it was always on the menu, without us ever questioning our consumption of it.

I will also add that the fact I have several pets, three cats, to be precise—even though I have always been more of a dog lover, yet somehow ended up with cats, further confirms my belief that the only reason why the idea of serving a cat or a dog on a plate, and subjecting them to the hell of slaughterhouses that other animals go through, feels so monstrous is simply because we know them. We give them names, we know their habits, their need to be cuddled and loved; we care for them when they are sick; we build closeness with them. That very same sensitivity, intelligence, and capacity for empathy exists in every animal. And yet, some we cuddle while others we put a knife to their throat.

Social networks and the spread of information have stripped away many myths. For a long time, I myself believed that cows simply had milk in abundance because they were “cows,” and not mothers whose babies are taken from them immediately after birth to satisfy the insatiable demands of the dairy industry—over and over again, without end. I bought into the stories and commercials telling us that animals are here “for us,” that it’s “natural,” that we are “at the top of the food chain” and thus entitled to exploit all life around us. Today I know better, that these are completely cultural constructions, rooted in greed and anthropocentrism, designed to normalize the indefensible.

The matter is complex, yes but when the arguments are weighed, what remains is undeniable: humans and animals, as Pythagoras said, share something profound, both are privileged with souls. Within us exists empathy and conscience, and no culture can erase them forever. The cries we do not hear, like those of the fish from my childhood, eventually will become deafening.

I believe that each of us, anyone who dares to truly look into the mirror, sooner or later, in the search for a deeper understanding of the world and of one’s own soul, or at least out of concern for the future of one’s children, must arrive at the following truth, that we have turned our beautiful planet, which was given to us to protect and cherish, into a living hell for all the other species that share it with us.

This is only the beginning of the story, just a scratch on the surface of a subject that moves me deeply. I know I will write more about it, for now, I simply want to share a few truths—reminders in the words of great minds—that remain, regardless of what you eat, believe, or how you live. This is not only about diet; it is about how we see the world, our place in it, our appetites, and ultimately our battle for a more just and compassionate future. Why then are we born with a desperate need to fight for justice, even when we know we are really fighting windmills, we go on, whether it is us today or the generations to come tomorrow, hopelessly, yet with indestructible hope, we go on.

And let us remember: vegetarianism is not a modern trend. Many of history’s greatest thinkers such as Pythagoras, Einstein, Shaw, Gandhi, Tolstoy, Voltaire, Plato, Tesla, da Vinci stood by their conscience and their hearts.

📌 Words of wisdom not to be forgotten

• “Cruelty to animals is the first violence a child learns—it leads to cruelty towards people.” – Plato

  
  

• “He who eats meat sows the seeds of war within himself.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

  
  

• “As long as man kills animals, he will never know peace or health. He who sows seeds of killing and pain cannot reap joy and love.” – Pythagoras

  
  

• “As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.” – Leo Tolstoy

  
  

• “Can we really ask by what right man takes the life of a being that does him no harm, simply for the pleasure of eating its flesh?” – Albert Einstein

  
  

• “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” – George Bernard Shaw

  
  

• “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.” – Voltaire

  
  

• “The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.” – Leonardo da Vinci

  
  

• “Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends.” – Mahatma Gandhi