We are the Dust of Stars
I was born some months ago or maybe years,
I am not sure. Here inside, everything is confusing and all of us are crazy. Time
doesn’t belong to my nature but for some strange reason all of us know and we
understand it. It is as if the men that control us have contaminated us with their
experience and knowledge. This is unless it is just some of them because about
others I cannot rise to know.
I was separated from my mother so soon, too
soon, and I saw some of my brothers assassinated and the others were taken away
from me. To the others that survived that madness and I, they mutilated us,
without anaesthetic. We felt huge pain.
What is my name? Have I a name? I can’t
remember.
I exist with others in a big and dark place
with an unbearable stench and full of excrement, filth and disease around
us. They keep us alive but with what purpose, I can’t
imagine. I am scared out of my wits.
We barely have space to move. Often we
injure and hurt ourselves. Some live with huge open and infected injuries. A
lot of us are both victims and perpetrators of cannibalism, as a result of the
madness of the life to which we are subjected. Sometimes, one of us cannot
support this Dante-esque hell and dies. No one comes to retrieve the cadaver
for hours and hours.
They feed us with a paste made from
modified flour and putrid water. In the eyes of my peers I can see the anguish
and despair. All of us know that we will die. We don’t receive kindness or
sympathy from our keepers. They do the opposite, they shout, insult and hit us.
The cries and shrieks are the demonic music that we are obliged to hear, day
after day, week after week until our final day because no one will come here to
rescue us.
What is my name? Have I a name? I can’t
remember.
Recently they returned, they do this
regularly and they take away some of us by force. I hear a noise outside, a
familiar noise. I have a bad feeling. I think this time that they have come for
me. The doors open and some of our keepers approach us with sticks…my heart
races and my hope disappears. We are beaten, kicked and shouted at. Scared, we
obey their orders and are herded into a metallic corridor that has only one
direction, a transport truck. Where they will bring us, I do not want to think
about.
It is cold, so cold. It is night and for
the first time in my poor life I can see the stars through the slats. Some of my
companions have fallen down and due to the small space we have, they are not
able to get up and are being trampled by those who are still standing. The
truck is started and the cold intensifies. I do not think that I can hold out
much longer. I’m scared, I’m cold, it hurts my soul.
Why is all this happening? Who am I? What
is my name? Have I a name? I cannot remember.
A few minutes ago, the truck stopped. From
where I am, I cannot see that much but I smell food, real food. The situation
inside here is sad. Some of my mates, the most weak, were not able to support
themselves, they collapsed and were squashed and then died of asphyxiation. The
rest of us, we know what end awaits us. I want to escape but nobody that passes
near the truck helps us. Nobody sees us. Nobody wants to see us. The driver
came back and the truck starts on its way again and our desperation rises.
After one day en route, without water and without food, we have got to our
destination. Again, we are obliged to get out of the truck, being hit and
herded. This time they use electric prods to make us obey because the
resistance we put up is bigger. We know what is in store for us. We are not
stupid.
They usher us into a line in another
metallic corridor. It is so narrow that it is impossible to turn around and run
away. There are others in front and behind me, the only possible way is
forwards. Those that do not move are hit and electrified. I saw how they broke
the leg of one of us who did not want to move. To make him advance, even with
his injury, they put a hook through his face to pull him forwards. In the
distance, I hear cries and screams of extreme desperation that cannot be real.
It is like a horror movie but is really happening.
Who am I? What’s my name? Have I a name? I
cannot remember.
The queue moves forward, the smell of death
is more and more intense and the adrenalin passes through my whole body. Nobody
wants to move but there is no alternative. We cannot stop. They will not let
us. I see he who is in front of me enter into a small cabin. How he screams. I
smell his fear and suddenly collapse. The cabin opens and one of our keepers
hooks a chain to my friend’s leg. When they haul him up, I see a tear fall from
his eyes. His look is lost but without doubt he is conscious. I see him blink.
It is my turn.
I want to go back but I can’t. I cry out. I
cannot understand why all this madness is happening. My life like my friends’
lives has been torture from beginning to end. They have stolen all my mental
health, my dignity, any possibility to love, to live and to enjoy. They stole
it all from me but for what? I am pushed into the cabin by those who come
behind me. The space closes in around me and then I can’t move. To my right, I
see the death, the cruelty and the evil. I can’t believe what is happening, it
must be a nightmare. A row of my equals are hanging from their legs, with
throats cut and bleeding out, while still convulsing. One of them has come
loose and has fallen, where it writhes and drowns in its own blood.
Someone
approaches me. I hear his footsteps. I look ahead and there I see him. A man
dressed in white overalls, dirty with red. His eyes do not meet mine, they do
not want to see me. I am terrified. I panic, I cry and cry as loud as I can. I
know that I am going to die. My body releases more adrenalin and cortisone. My
heart speeds up and my blood pressure increases. My pupils dilate, as I watch
as they put pincers in my head. I cry! I
cry! I want to flee! I want to live! Do not do this to me! Electric shock left
me unconscious. I recover my consciousness. It takes me a few moments to
realize where I am. I am hanging, head down, hooked by one of my legs. I see
the waterproof boots of someone wearing a white apron stained red. My head is
numb but I’m beginning to regain my senses. Something pierces my throat. I feel
like a knife comes in and opens me in a channel. Blood starts to flow. I cannot
breath without stopping to swallow. Why is this happening to me?
I try to break free but I cannot. It hurts.
I move. I get dizzy. The ground moves beneath me as I leave a huge puddle of
blood in my wake. The sight clouds me and I lose consciousness little by
little. I recover my senses abruptly, I try to move desperately. The pain is
infinite. I am in a pool of boiling water, they’re scalding my skin. I try to
swim but I do not have the strength. Life escapes me as I remember who I am or
what I was. In another life I was the slaughterer, the executioner and had a
human name. Today I’m just a pig.
FINAL REFLECTION
We are the dust of stars. The heaviest
molecule that can be formed in a massive star is an iron molecule. Molecules,
heavier than iron, are formed in Supernovas, supermassive star deaths. Iron,
which formed billions of years ago, in the death of massive stars, Novas, has
been coming to the Earth as cosmic dust or meteorites. The iron molecules that are two hundred and
sixty million years old, that were part of the blood of dinosaurs, are the same
molecules that run today throughout the blood of animals, other mammals, other
humans and yourself.
In addition to iron, the human being is made
up of about thirty other minerals. When we die, our bodies decompose but the
molecules are not destroyed. An iron molecule will be forever, unless it is
transformed into another heavier molecule, in the supermassive star death of a
Supernova.
At the physical level, reincarnation
exists, even in a small portion of molecular matter. What happens to us at an
energetic level? Do we have soul? And spirit? What is consciousness? As quantum
physics shows us; to believe is to create. The mere fact of observing modifies
matter at the quantum level. We also know that people often attract what they
project. What does consciousness have to do with it? Does our energy die when
we die? Or is it recycled in any way? Will this consciousness remain intact in
our spirit or will it become fragmented?
What I propose with this story is an
ethical and philosophical approach. We are ethical and rational animals with a
conscience. We have empathy, self awareness and are aware of our environment.
There are other ethical and rational animals, with a conscience, with empathy
and who have self awareness and an awareness of their environment, sentient
beings who both rejoice and suffer. It
is true that they cannot structure their emotions through language but that
does not make them less than us. They have other abilities that we have
forgotten or lost but which are as valuable or more valuable than speech.
Precisely our ability to speak, to develop
complex thoughts through language makes us think abstract ideas. We can come to
deep philosophical thoughts that other animals cannot reach.
And it is this capacity that forces us. It
forces us to protect them from ourselves. A lion kills out of biological
necessity. We do not have that biological necessity, since we can choose to feed
ourselves without causing death or pain to another sentient being. Yet we
inflict the great suffering known in the history of planet Earth.
We enslave our evolutionary brothers, feed
them with genetically modified organisms, torture them, breed them, rob them of
their mental health, separate them from their families, inflict extreme pain on
them, kill them, cut them up and eat their mutilated and diseased bodies, full
of substances and toxic hormones, released during times of stress before their
death and during a lifetime of suffering.
Do you even think her flesh is healthy? Do
you think it gives you the nutrients you would not find in any other food?
Awake!!!
You eat meat because the meat industry has
managed to brainwash you. The reification of animals is their most powerful
weapon, reducing them from a being to a thing. We serve them chopped, so that
we do not distinguish their morphology. What is called steak, fillet, sirloin
and bacon are, in fact, corpse meat cut into strips, coming from a sentient
being who has been subjected to torture and has given up his life against his
will.
They make us believe that without the flesh
we will not get the necessary proteins for our sustenance and it is not true.
The truth is that we eat too much protein, intoxicating our livers and kidneys.
We have to get rid of the protein we do not use. The excess of protein causes
the plasma concentration of ammonium (NH4+) to increase, which means
acidification of our organism. We overload the liver, which tries to transform
ammonium into urea, which is less toxic. We also overload the kidneys, which
generates more urine to eliminate it, which causes dehydration.
The consumption of meat also acidifies the
blood and to compensate, our body uses alkaline minerals like calcium in our
bodies to balance the pH. In the long run, this can lead to osteoporosis and
kidney stones. Keeping the body in a state of permanent acidity is a perfect
scenario for cellular aging and cancer, among many other diseases. Our
sedentary life is a time bomb if we eat meat.
For every kilo of meat put on our plates,
fifteen thousand litres of water has been expended, about 25 times more than a
vegetarian diet. For each kilo of rice for example, about 500 litres of water are
used and per kilo of wheat, 230 litres.
To produce a kilo of meat, 16 kilos of
grain has been used to feed cattle. If we used the same hectares that we use to
grow cereals, for fruit and vegetables instead, the ratio would increase
considerably.
Approximately 40% of the world’s cereals
are destined for animal feed and 60% comes from developing countries, where the
population suffers from nutritional deficiencies.
The high consumption of meat is a direct
cause of hunger in the world.
To all this, we must add the problems of
deforestation of the jungles and primary
forests. They are turned into arable land
to plant cereals that will be used for animal consumption. Every year,
300,000km2 are lost.
To produce one kilo of animal protein, 25
times more energy is used than to produce one kilo of vegetable protein. The
production of a single hamburger consumes the equivalent of driving a car for
40km, or the equivalent of 17 showers. An omnivore on a bicycle contaminates
more than a vegan driving an SUV.
Eating meat is your final choice but not
your personal choice. A personal choice
only affects you whereas eating meat has an impact on another. If you have come
here and read all this, I invite you to reflect, to empathize with animals.
Maybe some day, it will be us in their place.
Do not take the story I wrote as a fantasy,
but as a possibility.
I leave you with your evolutionary process
and your decision.
Thank you with all my heart for having read
my story.
Enemigopublic0
