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I'm Losing the Desire to Share My Writing

Journals & Diaries / by CradleDuck

2 days ago

I Can’t Stop Replaying the House Fire I Witnessed

Journals & Diaries / by CradleDuck

September 5th

The Normalization Of Horror (Warning Graphic Language)

Journals & Diaries / by CradleDuck

September 2nd

...See more I’ve been thinking about veganism from a different perspective. Throughout human history, horrific forms of exploitation were once considered completely normal, including slavery, child labor, forced labor, human trafficking, human zoos, forced assimilation of Indigenous children, experiments on people without their consent, forced sterilization, and even castrating boys like Alessandro Moreschi and other castrati to preserve their singing voices. I’m not saying animal agriculture is identical to these atrocities. The victims, circumstances, histories, and forms of suffering are different. I’m talking about the mechanism of normalization. Normalization is not a moral justification. It is a psychological anesthetic. Human beings have repeatedly built economies, traditions, laws, institutions, and entire cultures around suffering until ordinary people barely recognized the suffering anymore. And consider the contradiction today: even people convicted of humanity’s most horrific crimes, including genocide, mass murder, torture, rape, human trafficking, and the sexual abuse of children, can still have basic protections against torture and cruel punishment because we recognize that there are lines we should not cross even with the guilty. Yet animals who have murdered no one, raped no one, tortured no one, abused no child, and harmed no one can be repeatedly impregnated, confined in cages so small they cannot turn around, separated from their babies, castrated, have tails cut off, horns burned or removed, parts of their beaks cut or burned away, and ultimately be stunned, shackled, have their throats cut, bleed out, be dismembered, packaged, and sold because humans find their bodies useful. Their crime was simply being born a pig, a cow, or a chicken. We call it farming, production, processing, and food, but changing the language does not change what the animal experiences. History has repeatedly shown us how easily humans defend suffering with “we’ve always done it,” “it’s our culture,” “people’s livelihoods depend on it,” “it’s legal,” and “it’s necessary.” We are very good at recognizing the moral blind spots of people who came before us, but far less willing to consider that some of the horrors we accept as completely normal today may be our own. Normal does not mean moral. Sometimes “normal” is just suffering we have learned not to question. So look. Learn where your food comes from. Watch what happens when the advertisements and packaging are removed. Question what you were taught was normal. Ask whether tradition, taste, convenience, or profit can justify what happens to these animals when we have alternatives. And if the answer makes you uncomfortable, do not look away. Let that discomfort change something. Choose compassion. Stop participating where you can. https://michaelsboost.com/govegan/

I Was a Quiet Vegan Until I Started Asking Questions

Journals & Diaries / by CradleDuck

September 1st

...See more For about a year and a half, I was a quiet vegan. I wasn't constantly posting about it, challenging people, or trying to start arguments. Now that I've finally started speaking openly about why I'm vegan and asking people to seriously examine the ethics of unnecessarily harming and killing sentient beings, I honestly feel like I've stepped into absolute madness. I've watched people I know, respect, and even love defend things I never imagined I'd hear them defend. I've heard everything from God supposedly giving us animals to exploit, to lions eating zebras, plants feeling pain, crop deaths, human evolution, survival situations, economics, nutrition, and every hypothetical imaginable, while the basic ethical question keeps getting buried: if we don't need to harm and kill a sentient being, what morally justifies doing it anyway? What's been especially disturbing isn't simply that people disagree with me. It's watching how quickly compassion, mercy, personal responsibility, and even religious morality can disappear when those principles challenge something a person has normalized their entire life. I've been insulted, mocked, had goalposts moved, watched conversations get deflected into completely different subjects, and seen people construct increasingly extreme scenarios rather than confront the original question. Jeremy being a preacher makes that contradiction especially difficult for me to process, because I've watched someone who speaks about God and morality resort to ridicule and personal insults instead of explaining how unnecessary harm fits those principles. I sometimes describe it as "the demons exposing themselves," not because I'm literally claiming these people are demons, but because that's genuinely how surreal it has felt. I spent a year and a half quietly living according to this conviction, and the moment I started speaking about it publicly, I began seeing sides of people I had never seen before. At the same time, I don't think everyone I'm arguing with is an evil person. Some of these are people I genuinely care about. That's part of what makes this so difficult. I'm beginning to understand just how powerful culture, tradition, religion, identity, convenience, and cognitive dissonance can become when someone is asked not merely what they believe about compassion, but whether they're willing to apply those beliefs consistently when doing so requires changing their own behavior. That's the experience I've been having, and frankly, it's been exhausting.

The Balance Comes Due

Journals & Diaries / by CradleDuck

August 30th

...See more They taught us every forest has a price upon its head, That progress means consumption and success means getting fed. But you cannot eat a dollar when the final field is dead, And no market resurrection brings the oceans from the red. We built temples out of concrete, put the prophets on payroll, Sold the sunlight by the watt and put a mortgage on the soul. Turned the rivers into poison, turned the mountains into holes, Then applauded rising profits while the planet paid the toll. Every product needs a buyer, every quarter must expand, Every empire calls it freedom while it bleeds another land. They say growth can last forever, but they do not understand: You cannot demand infinity from one exhausted strand. We confuse accumulated wealth with being civilized, While the smoke above the skyline puts a sunset in disguise. We got billionaires in bunkers selling fear to stay alive, While the workers feed the system that is eating them inside. This is bigger than recycling or the *** you choose to buy. It’s an engine built for hunger that consumes or it will die. When survival needs destruction just to keep the stocks supplied, That’s not economics, ***. That is suicide. When the balance comes due, what the *** will money do? Can it clean a poisoned ocean? Can it make the forests new? You can hide behind your borders, but the fire is coming through. Mother Earth remembers everything we thought she never knew. When the balance comes due, there is nowhere left to run. You can’t purchase back the rainfall, you can’t privatize the sun. We were warned about the ending while pretending we had won. Now the age of taking everything is finally *** done. They convinced us we were separate, like the soil was not our skin, Like the water wasn’t sacred, like the air was not within. Like the Earth was just a warehouse we could empty for a win, But the war against the planet is a war we cannot win. Ancient people read the seasons; modern markets read the charts. One respected living systems, one reduced the world to parts. Now the algorithm measures what a dying species costs, But it cannot count the meaning of the future we have lost. We got food thrown in the landfill while the children starve nearby, Empty homes beside the homeless underneath a freezing sky. It’s not scarcity that kills us. It’s the rules by which we divide. There is more than enough for living, just not endless *** pride. They’ll defend the sacred market while the coastline disappears, Sell disaster as a product, turn catastrophe to shares. If the system needs the suffering of the many every year, Then the system isn’t broken. It is working as designed here. I gave you roots. You wanted towers. I gave you seeds. You poisoned flowers. I gave you time. You counted hours, Then sold tomorrow chasing power. You drew your borders on my body. Named theft “wealth” and murder “progress.” But every kingdom you erected Will become my soil regardless. I am not your silent mother. I am thunder. I am flood. I’m the memory in the mountain. I’m the warning in your blood. You may own the deed on paper. You may claim the air and sea. But when your final market closes, You will all belong to me. This ain’t asking for the Stone Age. This is asking us to grow, To create a lasting system where tomorrow gets a vote. Where the measure of a nation isn’t how much *** it owns, But whether every living being has a healthy place called home. Build an economy that serves us, not a god we have to feed, Where the goal is human wellness, not manufactured need. Where we take what can replenish, where we share what all receive, And no child inherits ashes for another’s *** greed. We can redesign the future, but denial has a cost. Every year we keep pretending is another future lost. There’s a point of no returning, and the line is being crossed. Either change the way we’re living or become what progress costs. This is not about perfection. This is choosing to begin. It’s remembering we’re nature, not invaders looking in. There can still be resurrection if responsibility wins, But we cannot heal the planet with the logic that condemned it. When the balance comes due, what the *** will money do? Can it resurrect a species? Can it make the rainfall true? There is no escape to Mars for all the billions you used. You can’t build another Earth after this one is abused. When the balance comes due, let the old illusion fall. There is no healthy economy if the ecosystem crawls. Either life becomes the purpose, or our purpose ends us all. Mother Earth will keep on turning… She just might not keep us on. We called the taking “freedom.” We called the sickness “growth.” We sacrificed the future To preserve a dying oath. The planet never owed us. The debt was always ours. And balance will be settled Long after we are gone.

If It Doesn’t Honor Life, It’s Not the Way.

Journals & Diaries / by CradleDuck

August 23rd

...See more Our ancestors knew ways of living that did not reduce every human need to a transaction. Community meant responsibility to one another. Land was not merely property. Life was not merely a resource. Many understood themselves as caretakers, not owners, and knew that what we leave behind matters to generations we will never meet. Yet here we are, nearly 250 years after being told we were given freedom, still fighting for basic dignity. We have normalized paying simply to exist. Food. Water. Shelter. Healthcare. Land. Even in death, we cannot escape the burden of a bill. We call ourselves free because we can choose where to sell our labor, while millions are one lost paycheck, illness, or rent increase away from losing everything. The exhaustion you feel is telling us something. None of this is inevitable. These systems were created by human beings, and human beings can create something different. Decolonize your mind. We exist. This is a sacred experience to be cherished, not consumed. Our liberation is not about recreating some perfect past. It is about remembering principles we abandoned: reciprocity, community, responsibility, stewardship, belonging, and respect for future generations. We are caretakers of this precious home. Poisoning the only water, soil, and air we have in the name of endless growth is insanity. If it doesn't honor life, it's not the way. You are meant for so much more in this lifetime.

Looking Beyond the Symptoms

Journals & Diaries / by CradleDuck

August 22nd

...See more Part of why I’ve always felt disconnected and alone is that I’m rarely interested in the surface of what everyone is arguing about; I’m interested in the forces producing it. We talk about domestic violence while ignoring male victims and the generations of unresolved trauma, emotional suppression, dysfunctional families, and survival adaptations that often precede the violence. We debate AI and Flock cameras while barely examining the socioeconomic incentives and institutional structures determining how technology is actually used and abused. We keep isolating symptoms instead of examining the causal architecture beneath them. I don’t care what economic ideology you subscribe to; when money becomes the primary determinant of survival and institutional success, human well-being, community, ethics, privacy, and ecological health inevitably become subordinate when they conflict with financial incentives. Meanwhile, our attention is consumed by celebrity culture, sports, political theater, and manufactured outrage. I’m interested in something deeper: the psychological, economic, cultural, technological, and institutional forces that continuously shape human behavior and reproduce the reality we experience. Until we develop the collective awareness to examine causes instead of endlessly reacting to consequences, we will keep reproducing the same dysfunction under different names. We desperately need to wake up.

Is It Morally Wrong to Use Roadkill If You Did Not Cause the Animal’s Death?

General Support / by CradleDuck

August 18th

...See more I oppose deliberately killing animals, raising them for slaughter, or creating commercial demand for animals to be killed for food, leather, tools, or other products. If someone intentionally hits an animal and then pretends it was an accident so they can use the body, that is still deliberately killing an animal, and I consider it morally wrong. But if an animal is accidentally killed and someone who had nothing to do with its death safely and legally uses its meat, hide, bones, sinew, or other remains, I do not consider that morally equivalent to causing or purchasing its death. The person did not kill the animal, request that it be killed, or financially encourage another animal to be killed. The same reasoning can apply to secondhand animal materials. Buying an existing cowhide from a thrift store is not the same economic action as purchasing a newly produced hide from an industry that raises or kills animals. I also recognize that leaving a carcass in nature is not automatically waste. Carrion feeds scavengers, insects, fungi, bacteria, and soil organisms, making decomposition an important part of nutrient cycling. I am not arguing that humans should collect every dead animal or deprive wildlife of food. My question is why an animal consuming carrion is considered natural and morally acceptable, while responsible human use is automatically considered immoral. I also see no inherent moral problem with safely preparing suitable portions for other animals when appropriate. Questions about disease, contamination, traffic hazards, local wildlife needs, and collection laws are legitimate practical concerns, but they are separate from the underlying ethical question. Economic circumstances matter too. Although inexpensive plant-based staples such as beans, lentils, rice, oats, and chickpeas exist, manufactured substitutes such as plant-based burgers, eggs, and milk frequently cost more than their conventional counterparts. Market data continues to show price premiums for plant-based substitutes, while USDA data shows that food consumes a much larger share of income for low-income households. People living under monetary market economics generally require money to access food, shelter, land, transportation, and tools. Using an already available resource to eat, make a necessary tool, or earn enough to survive does not automatically mean that someone supports animal exploitation or endorses the economic system in which they are required to live. Some people believe any human use of an animal’s body is inherently wrong, regardless of how the animal died. Others focus on suffering, causation, commercial demand, necessity, waste, and ecological context. Where do you draw the ethical line on using roadkill, and why? I want to understand the reasoning behind different perspectives, not argue about dietary labels or judge anyone personally. Please explain your complete position in your initial response so the different views can be compared fairly. Supporting information: USDA data shows that in 2024, households in the lowest income group spent approximately 33 percent of their before-tax income on food: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-prices-and-spending Good Food Institute market data reports that a price gap between plant-based and conventional meat products continues to exist: https://gfi.org/resource/analyzing-plant-based-meat-and-seafood-sales/ Scientific research describes carrion decomposition as important to ecosystem functioning and nutrient cycling: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11968553/ I want to hear different perspectives, especially from vegans and people concerned with animal welfare, about the ethics of using roadkill. This is not about my diet or what label anyone believes I should use. It is about the ethical principle itself.

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