When people eat meat, they very intentionally do not imagine the animal it came from. They don’t imagine it being born, they don’t imagine it discovering the nature of life on Earth, they don’t imagine it suffering pain and fear at the hands of farmers, they don’t imagine the terror it must have experienced before it died, they don’t imagine the instinctive behaviours they longed to engage in but never had the opportunity. They don’t think about how the individual had the capacity to love, and indeed probably felt love for their mother if they were allowed to spend any time with her. The animal is kept psychologically absent from the meal.

I had this bullshit white boy cliche in my head that native americans spoke to the animal, and thanked them for their sacrifice. That they thought of the animal as an individual who had a life, who had interests, who existed. This is making the animal psychologically present at the time of consumption. I tried doing this. I tried consuming the animals with the idea of them at individuals, not as meat, in my mind. I found it intolerable, but knowing that, I could never go back. I became vegan.