I am a Villain in My Own Story
I’m responsible for the deaths and suffering of 3470 animals and tremendous damage to the planet — my testimony and investigation.
“Nobody is a villain in their own story. We’re all the heroes of our own stories.”
George R. R. Martin
Well, I messed up because I’m a villain in mine.
I was a good kid
My mother used to feed half of the stray cats in the neighbourhood. She couldn’t stand the smell of fish but prepared it every day for the homeless sleeping furballs seizing our balcony.
Our family adopted five cats and a loyal to the grave dog.
Following her footsteps, I have always loved animals. Observed, defended, adopted, fed, and even saved them from inevitable death.
Waking up for school was a struggle, but an early Saturday animal TV show was necessary for me.
Once I jumped into a fight to defend a murdered mouse’s honour. That didn’t go well. I defended a girl with a puppy from a sizeable stray dog. Twenty bleeding puncture holes in the left arm, seven stitches, and a course of rabies shots were the outcomes of that heroic stand.
Yet, I continued feeding and helping stray dogs after that.
I returned into the wild a few adorable hedgehogs and mended the wing of a grounded martin bird. I could see her heart beating out of the tiny chest before I opened my palm and let her go.
I even saved multiple spiders from flatmates and frightened girls with unreasonable murder intentions.
The thought of suffering animals made me nauseous. Movies with animal cruelty scenes were out of the question. It took just one mention of the responsibility of putting down sick animals to turn me away from the veterinarian profession.
A total of around 70 creatures benefited from young and naive me.
That list and my relationship with animals were at the core of my personality — the soft, caring, and gentle part. The only side that poverty and hateful and aggressive father didn’t corrupt.
That list was the certificate of my decency.
As an adult, I did nothing but care.
With social media, the word “care” morphed into something ugly and passive. Active care is when people put time and effort into someone or something under their attention.
These days it’s nothing more than a PR word to boost likes and subscriptions.
Every person will exclaim, “of course, I care about animals and the environment,” if you ask. Admitting the opposite will make anyone look like a monster.
And I followed the trend. Occasional thumbs up on Facebook posts about animals. Or a salty comment on mistreated animals’ videos.
Ignorance is bliss for the fake image.
I avoided any information or discussion that would question my self-image.
I sued to even run away from animal activists on the streets. And their graphic X-rated videos about “Happy Farm Animals.”
Those challenged the foundation of my character by putting the most prised and respected self-image under the microscope. But I was too weak and insecure.
So any attempt to question my character felt personal. And anger was a natural response.
Clues and a Doubt.
Now and then, a tiny bit of information got through and planted a seed.
My decent self-image was dangling on the belief that meat and dairy are healthy and necessary. It was a fact. Why would I question it?
With time doubt was connecting things previously presumed irrelevant. Like believing in Santa Claus until someone drops the bomb. Denial, followed by gradual realization through little clues you couldn’t connect previously.
The main clue, in this case, was the health problems of the three generations.
Gen 1: All my grandparents died in their fifties due to:
- Diabetes
- Heart problems
Gen 2: My parents moved to a different country, and both were diabetic even though my mother didn’t like sweets. That fact alone was unsettling.
Gen 3: And I was 30 years old at the time. On track for the same health problems.
A blood test and doctor visit took place when I was at the top of a sports game. Work, train, sleep, repeat, was my life for a year, and of course, the “best sports diets” out there; eggs, boiled chicken, steamed rice, and a salad.
To my surprise doctor exclaimed, “you need to lower the cholesterol by eating healthier. Try steamed lean meat like chicken, rice, and salad”.
“Bull shit,” I would say now.
But six years ago, I left the doctor’s office speechless.
How do three generations living thousands of kilometres apart share the same health problems? What is the one thing we have in common?
So, I unleashed a whole force of documentaries (Game changer, What the health), scientific papers, and testimonies from healthy and live vegans.
All aligned with my life experience.
And it clicked.
A huge weight was lifted
True freedom is where an individual’s thoughts and actions are in alignment with that which is true, correct, and of honour — no matter the personal price.
Bryant H. McGill
I felt free — annoying ringing noise faded at the back of my head.
I was happy and proud of myself even though it was an ongoing few months-long transitions into a plant-based lifestyle.
If you ever had to quit smoking or alcohol, this one is ten times harder.
Decades of commercials, billboards, and Cinema’s attempts to demonize healthy life choices were powerless against me. I was finally in control.
It turned out:
- rewriting the recipe book,
- changing shopping habits,
- learning to use newfound physical and mental power,
Those weren’t the toughest challenges.
A month or two later, probably by the time excess cholesterol had finally left my bloodstream and cravings weren’t a problem anymore, simple math hit me like never before.
One villain out of 8 billion people can still do the damage.
At the rate of 100kg of meat and dairy a year for 30 years. I’m directly responsible for the deaths and suffering of 3470 animals.
- 6 cows
- 14 pigs
- 1200 chickens
- 2250 fishes
3470 dead have tramped my “goody-two-shoes” list of 70 saved animals by a lot.
On top of that, all those animals had to eat, drink and poop. It roughly took around 100 cubic KM of freshwater and a similar amount of food to raise 3470 animals. Plus, CO2, CH4 in the atmosphere.
Imagine the beautiful Lake Nicaragua. The abundance of freshwater — enough to sustain 1 million people for a lifetime.
I took it all for myself and traded it for 30 years of barbeques and creamy tastes in my mouth.
But I didn’t stop there.
To leave my signature card, as all decent villains do, I replaced all the water in the lake with animal faeces. Because for every gram of meat or dairy, there is a certain amount of animal by-product left.
A lake full of shit is what I left behind for future generations.
Crime and the punishment
Nothing could have prepared me for what came next.
An ordinary sunny, chilly day in lockdown. I was in the middle of the living room watching familiar TV shows in the background to mask loneliness and boredom.
Deep breath…
And suddenly, I saw a lightning speed slide show in front of my eyes — “happy farm animals”.
Sudden exhale.
Silence…
A tingly sensation ran through my body. And … BOOM!
A loud clap followed by high pitch tone in my ears. As if a shock wave has hit me.
I was gasping for air in the middle of the room.
It felt like blood had left my body — cold sweats.
Blurred vision. I was looking at the TV with unrecognizable “Friends” characters, hoping for help.
I looked down to make sure my legs were still there because I couldn’t feel them — wobbling but still holding me upright.
Thirty years of suppressed guilt have finally caught up with me.
Even semi-lethal quantities of alcohol couldn’t suppress it.
The only time in my life I remember feeling something similar was in the 2nd grade when I stole the weekly lunch money to buy some sweets.
I had to answer for my deed in the child’s version of the court of law, where teachers and parents were the judges, noisy classmates were the jury, and guilt, shame, and lack of trust were the punishment.
I’ll be good.
For decades I have been creating little tools to guard myself against the devastating feeling of guilt and got very good at it.
All evidence was screaming — guilty. Justifications and the blind belief in innocence were all I had on my side. Still, I fought violently and sometimes dirty to save face.
It didn’t matter how much damage and destruction I caused, as long as I thought well about myself.
I’m a grown man now. And hiding behind “it’s not my fault” seemed childish.
It was time to shut down the outdated sweet lies and justifications generator in my head. For decades it was working overtime and wasted precious mental energy. And it put up quite a fight on its way out.
Now I want to be good.
On my own, it will take another 28 years of a plant-based lifestyle to balance my 30 years of ignorance. And our home planet doesn’t have that much time.
Only together can we recover the ecosystem in time before the point of no return.
And with your help, my Supervillain cape will come off sooner.
Thank you.
“The hardest battle you will ever fight will be with yourself.”
