Careless

The reason I became a vegetarian is because I was hit with the overwhelming reality that no living animal needs to die so that I can live.  Strong statement, I know.  But, at minimum, no living creature should have to die just so I can eat.  How’s that?  A little more tame?  As time goes on, I find myself feeling more and more strongly about it.  In the past year or so, I have not knowingly contributed to the death of a single animal, “knowingly” being the operative word here.

And “knowingly” falls short.

When I was visiting the shores of Lake Superior, I took to skipping rocks.  I’ve always loved skipping rocks, and I’ve gotten fairly good over the years.  At work, they call those “hidden talents.”  The rocks on the beach where we were staying were particularly flat and particularly good for skipping.  One day, I was collecting rocks.  They kept getting bigger and bigger, until I finally pried a large triangular rock from between two huge slabs of stone.  It was ridiculously huge, but I was in a rock-collecting frenzy.  As I lifted the rock, I saw something pale fall into the water.  I bent over to look at the pale thing floating on the ground.  I couldn’t quite make it out, so I put the rock down next to the other stones.  I scooped the pale thing out of the water.  

It was a crayfish.  Two of its legs were torn off.  It body was twisted.  Its innards were coming out of a crack in its shell.  It was clearly dying.

It is amazing how careless we, as human beings, can be.  We are particularly careless when it comes to nature and our collective effect on the environment, the world around us.  We can be careless with one another, too, but it is clearly far more effortless for us to destroy our world without much consideration.  While this may seem like an overreaction to the accidental death of a single crayfish, the whole thing highlighted to me how important it is for me to be deliberate in my actions.  

My wife is always asking me what my intentions are when I behave a certain way or do a certain thing.  The question ranges from thought-provoking to annoying depending on how guilty and defensive I feel, but there is wisdom in the thought behind the inquiry.  Without deliberate thought and without clear intention, actions can become thoughtless, careless, destructive.  We cannot control everything of course, so unexpected outcomes are to be expected.  But let accidents be true accidents and not the result of negligence.

I felt remorse for the death of that crayfish.  I didn’t stop to think how my actions might impact the world around me.  I didn’t think at all.  I was plain careless.