Glenn's little ugly blog

For the past few weeks I've been struggling with feeling terribly unmotivated.

I'm not sure why, but it will likely pass. It could be anxiety over expectations for projects I am or should be working on.

Or, I could just be noticing today because of this weather.

I recently received in the mail my Certificate in Dialogue and Civic Engagement from SFU. I'm a little proud of this certificate, since I put a quite a bit of work into getting it. It's not a professional certification in anything. But it is meaningful.

I've written about SFU's dialogue programs before. I found the whole program immensely rewarding and educational. Having the knowledge and skills to convene dialogue and engagement events is very useful to me in my activism. One of my driving passions is to do what I can to build a stronger animal rights community through events that bring people together to share and discuss ideas and projects.

So far, I've worked on Animal Advocacy Camp and two other animal rights dialogues, with 3 more scheduled for later this year. One of them, "What is our message," will be a very challenging and ultimately, I think, very rewarding discussion. I'm also a bit nervous about convening and attempting to facilitate this discussion.

If you are interested in signing up for the certificate program yourself, they are still accepting applications and they still have some scholarships available. If you are interested, they ask that you apply by August 13.

If you have any questions about my experience with this program, feel free to get in touch. I'd be more than happy to chat about it with you.

Recently I had an occasion to feel sad when I heard that a friend of mine had lost a loved one. I felt incredibly sad for him, for his loss.

This got me thinking about how I feel when people or animals die. I've always thought that I felt sad for the one who died, that they were no longer with us. But now I'm realizing that I really feel sad for the loss of the living.

The times when I've felt the saddest at times of death have been when I empathized with the survivor.

I think this is also what bothered me most deeply about watching animals get killed for food. They almost always had children or mothers who were going to miss them - who would feel that loss. Perhaps that's one of the cruelest parts of animal farming - repeating this loss over and over again.

I went to church for the first time in several years this past Sunday. It was a slightly strange experience for me, being in a church again, listening to a sermon, standing with a hymnal. It brought back a lot of memories.

For all the familiarity, though, this was quite different from my childhood churchgoing. First off, this time I was in a Unitarian church. The hymns were about the interconnectedness of all life rather than fire or swords or fighting evil. The sermon was given by my friend Lesley (Executive Director of Fur Bearer Defenders) and it was all about her growing awareness of and respect for the lives of animals.

I grew up going to a Congregational church in Vermont just up the hill from my house. When the weather was nice and we were ready in time we could walk to church in the morning and then run home after the service. I learned on Sunday that the Unitarian church is governed very much like the Congregational church. To me the structure of the service was also very much the same.

That sense of familiarity combined with a very deep sense of the incredible difference between my childhood church and this Unitarian church was odd, to say the least. The look and feel of the church had me expecting one thing, but the content went in an entirely different direction.

I'm still often bothered by how the values of conservative Christianity violate the ethics laid out in the New Testament (for anyone who wasn't raised Christian, the New Testament is the 2nd part of the Bible, from Jesus' birth onward). I would sit and listen to Christians advocating for going to war against other countries, for eliminating social programs that would help the poor, for tax breaks that would benefit their own class but would cut funding for education and other important institutions. And then I would read about Jesus feeding the poor, having no possessions, telling the rich to give their possessions away to the poor. I read in the Bible of a man speaking of peace and love, but all I heard around me was hatred, violence, and selfishness.

I think that's what really sparked my move away from Christianity specifically and spirituality in general. Now I just simply don't believe in any of it. I can hardly understand why people go to churches every Sunday.

Throughout history, Unitarians have been incredibly progressive. Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors when I was growing up, was raised Unitarian. Ralph Waldo Emerson studied to become a Unitarian minister (but he left that church because it was too restricting!). They promote social justice and are inclusive of all people, regardless of sexual orientation, race, gender, and whatever difference you could possibly think of.

There's no mention of Jesus or God. It's almost as if in order to embrace the ethics that I saw in my early readings of the Bible the Unitarians had to excise that part of religion. I wonder if there's just something about worshipping a being and embracing a dogma that contributes to one becoming judgmental?

I'm still not sure if I enjoyed my first Unitarian service. It was enjoyable to hear Lesley speak, but I don't know if I can really enjoy the experience of a religious service, regardless of how closely it jives with my own personal ethics. But, if there must be religions, I am very happy that Unitarianism exists. It's pretty right on.

On my recent trip to Texas I read the book Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. They are the founders of 37 Signals, a small and very successful company that makes applications for project management and CRM, along with some other things.

This isn't a book about activism, but I found many valuable ideas in it that can be applied to activism and small organizations that can potentially make us more effective and powerful.

37 Signals has built a successful business by breaking the normal rules of business. They've stayed small, opting for sustainability over growth. They embrace constraints, simplicity, and have flipped the traditional software development process on its head. Their first book, Get Real, was a very fun-to-read look at their software development process and is worth reading for anyone working on projects of any kind. (If you follow that link you can read the whole thing online for free.) A lot of the ideas from that first book are contained in this second book as well, but more refined and with broader application.

Rework focuses on the authors' ideas about starting and building a business – ideas which can be very easily applied to animal rights projects and organizations. Here are some of my favourite little gems of brilliance, but I'll leave it to y'all to think about how you might apply this to your own activism (or any aspect of your life).

Stanley Kubrick gave this advice to aspiring filmmakers: "Get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all." Kubrick knew that when you're new at something, you need to start creating. The most important thing is to begin. So get a camera, hit Record, and start shooting.

If you want to do something, you've got to do it now. You can't put it on a shelf and wait two months to get around to it. You can't just say you'll do it later. Later, you won't be pumped up about it anymore.

Don't make up problems you don't have yet. It's not a problem until it's a real problem. Most of the things you worry about never happen anyway.

The most common excuse people give: "There's not enough time." They claim they'd love to start a company, learn an instrument, market an invention, write a book, or whatever, but there just aren't enough hours in the day.

Come on. There's always enough time if you spend it right. And don't think you have to quit your day job, either. Hang onto it and start work on your project at night.

Instead of watching TV or playing World of Warcraft, work on your idea. Instead of going to bed at ten, go to bed at eleven. We're not talking about all-nighters or sixteen-hour days—we're talking about squeezing out a few extra hours a week. That's enough time to get something going.

"I don't have enough time/money/people/experience." Stop whining. Less is a good thing. Constraints are advantages in disguise. Limited resources force you to make do with what you've got. There's no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative.

Forgoing sleep is a bad idea. Sure, you get those extra hours right now, but you pay in spades later: You destroy your creativity, morale, and attitude.

Keep in mind that the obvious solution might very well be quitting. People automatically associate quitting with failure, but sometimes that's exactly what you should do. If you already spent too much time on something that wasn't worth it, walk away. You can't get that time back. The worst thing you can do now is waste even more time.

When is your product or service finished? When should you put it on the market? When is it safe to let people have it? Probably a lot sooner than you're comfortable with. Once your product does what it needs to do, get it out there.

You can turn a bunch of great ideas into a crappy product real fast by trying to do them all at once. You just can't do everything you want to do and do it well. You have limited time, resources, ability, and focus. It's hard enough to do one thing right. Trying to do ten things well at the same time? Forget about it.

So sacrifice some of your darlings for the greater good. Cut your ambition in half. You're better off with a kick-ass half than a half-assed whole.

A strong stand is how you attract superfans. They point to you and defend you. And they spread the word further, wider, and more passionately than any advertising could.

Strong opinions aren't free. You'll turn some people off. They'll accuse you of being arrogant and aloof. That's life. For everyone who loves you, there will be others who hate you. If no one's upset by what you're saying, you're probably not pushing hard enough. (And you're probably boring, too.)

I'm on my way back to Vancouver from Texas, waiting for my flight to board. Reading through my rss reader I saw a new post from Seth Godin that caught my eye.

This post is titled "Sabotage!" but has nothing to do with the Beastie Boys song. What it is about is how we often undercut our own potential by doing what's safe and comfortable.

This paragraph in particular:

Or consider the way we resist opportunities to lead, to connect, to do work that matters. We don't resist because we're not capable of it... we resist because if our marketing fails, if we don't get the job or earn the trust, then we're off the hook. No promises made, which means no promises to keep.

I see this happen in animal rights activism a lot. I've seen people come up with an idea but immediately start thinking about ways that it won't work, reasons why they shouldn't even start working on it.

I've listened to conversations about how people would do more if only they could quit their job, if only they could work for an animal rights organization, if only they could win the lottery. What they're doing is creating fake constraints that prevent them from working hard and taking risks and possibly failing.

It's all self-sabotage.

I've done more than my share of this sort of thing over the years. It's hard not too. It seems like it's a part of our very nature.

But that still doesn't excuse me from taking those risks, from working on projects even if I don't feel like I have enough experience, from doing things that are uncomfortable and a lot of work.

This post reminded me of an activist here in Vancouver who recently decided to start tabling at events, even though she had never done it before. She's really taking this to heart – when something needs to be done, we can't wait around for someone else to do it, we have to get in there and make things happen ourselves. We're the only ones we can count on. And by we I mean each and every one of us.

What great projects and ideas are you sabotaging?

I found this photo of me the other day.

It got me thinking about being willing to jump.

As a child I was often climbing up trees, taking jumps like this, doing all sorts of things that seemed as if they could have gone terribly wrong. Of course, I was pretty safe. I climbed trees I knew would hold me. I jumped onto areas that didn't contain old boards or junk. I checked around before I jumped.

But I still had to make the leap – and there is always uncertainty when jumping. Maybe I could have slipped right as I was jumping and hit my head. Maybe I could have misjudged the terrain and could have landed in a hole.

My point is, no matter how much I checked before I ran and jumped, I was still taking a risk by making that leap.

I'd like to get back to the spirit of that little boy, ready to jump. But not just off of buildings – I want to have that spirit in life. Am I as willing to take on projects where I might fail? And now that failure means losing money or possibly being embarrassed, am I less willing to leap than I was when it meant breaking a leg?

And not only leaping, but leaping with joy.

Over the recent years more and more information has been coming out about how harmful the production of animal products is to the environment. But by and large the environmental movement has worked really hard to sidestep this whole issue. When they do talk about it they end up advocating for "local" or "grass-fed" animal products, which also have marginally less environmental impact.

Why is this?

Environmentalists provide a continual sense of betrayal to animal rights advocates. We are so aligned on so many issues – and veganism is a step we all have to take if we hope to deal with the problem of feeding the world without a whole new planet – but they are constantly showing little to no concern for the animals involved in their "environment."

Here's my hypothesis. Environmentalists will hardly ever agree with animal rights activists because they are starting from a position of use. The world and the environment are ours to use, and animals are simply a part of that environment.

That's one of the reasons why some of the largest conservation groups were originally "sportsmen's" groups (hunters, fishermen, and other forms of animal killers).

As animal rights activists, we need to see that the environmental movement is founded on an ethic of "use" rather than "care" or even "justice." In other words, the environmental movement is still largely an anthropocentric movement. The world and its inhabitants have value only insofar as they have value to humans. In this sense they are exactly the same as any mining corporation or hunting group. The difference comes in terms of how far into the future they look to determine value and what strategies they employ to conserve resources.

Does this mean that I would suggest we abandon our efforts to reach out to environmentalists? No, but I think we should be more cautious with our belief that environmentalists are our natural allies. To them, abstaining from animal products is just a strategy for conserving other important resources for humans, and they are highly unlikely to ever advocate an end to the exploitation of animals.

I think that we neglect potential alliances with social change movements that are based on rights and an end to exploitation. I think animal rights shares a lot of common foundation with other rights movements. I don't mean to say that we are entirely neglecting these issues, but rather that it does not get the focus and attention it deserves.

I see multiple articles each week discussing the environmental impacts of meat and other efforts to reach an environmental audience, but I hardly ever see articles drawing out the possible connections between social justice issues and animal rights. There are a few, of course, and one great example of some really good content on this topic is the Animal Rights & Anti-Oppression blog. There's also the Food Empowerment Project.

One of the local events in Vancouver that we (Liberation BC) table at is Justice Rocks, a music and social change event. We've been the only animal rights (and the only animal-focused group) there. But the audience is amazingly receptive to the message of animal rights – the fundamental message of non-exploitation, that animals have a right to lead their own lives, just as we do.

I think there are some really strong alliances that could be formed if we support other social justice causes – with or without promoting animal rights to them. Let everyone see that our ethic of non-exploitation really applies across the board. Find and support workers' rights, women's rights, fair trade, and so on. As it becomes more and more apparent that systems of oppression are linked, any work anyone can do to weaken those systems will benefit us all.

At least, that's what I think...

Seth Godin just posted a blog entry (Betting on smarter (or betting on dumber)) that begins:

Marketers fall into one of two categories:

A few benefit when they make their customers smarter. The more the people they sell to know, the more informed, inquisitive, free-thinking and alert they are, the better they do.

And most benefit when they work to make their customers dumber. The less they know about options, the easier they are to manipulate, the more helpless they are, the better they do.

This reminds me of the strategies of animal rights activists and the opposing strategies of animal agriculture.

On the one hand animal rights activists work to provide information about what happens to animals and the truth about animals. We work to see animals as they really are, rather than how we want them to be.

Animal rights activists risk their own safety to document the conditions inside factory farms, labs, puppy mills, fur farms, and so on. Our strategy is basically to give people the information they need to make honest choices about our use of animals.

On the other hand, most of animal agriculture takes the opposite approach. After each undercover investigation is released, the industry responds by locking down tighter, denouncing the activists, and misleading consumers into thinking that these are isolated cases.

They build higher walls around slaughterhouses, use misleading imagery on their packaging and marketing materials.

As an example, the dairy industry always leaves out the fact that cows need to be impregnated yearly to produce milk and that the resulting calves are taken away immediately. They also leave out that cows are considered "spent" after just a few years of producing many times more milk than they did half a century ago, and are sent off to slaughter.

The very use of the word "welfare" coming out of the mouths of animal agriculture advocates is a smokescreen designed to take attention away from the reality of the conditions these animals face.

Who will win in the end? Are most people open to making informed decisions or do they want to be hoodwinked by a profit-driven industry?

I'm optimistic, but it still dismays me when I talk to people on the street who wave away information with an "I don't want to know."

But that just makes it so much more important that we keep pushing to reveal the truth. That's our job as animal rights activists - tearing down those walls, revealing the dirty truth behind animal agriculture, spreading information about who these animals really are.

I recently attended the Let Live Animal Rights Conference in Portland, Oregon. I've been to it every year (this is the 3rd year they've held the conference). It keeps getting better and better.

After it's all over, my brain needs to recover. Being in social situations like that, I get slightly frantic and over-stimulated. And I talk a lot. Way too much, I think. I'm very much an introvert, and need to retreat and be quiet and by myself for a while after all of it.

I've written about the conference over on the Liberation BC blog:

• http://blog.liberationbc.org/2010/06/a-report-from-let-live-portland
• http://blog.liberationbc.org/2010/06/let-live-2010-creativity-passion-an...

There's also now some video up with me in it, a talk on online activism with Jasmin Singer of Our Hen House. I'm obviously not used to speaking with a microphone, and I talk very quietly, but hopefully some people will find some useful information in there somewhere.

Creative Online Activism from Let Live Foundation on Vimeo.

The first talk is always the hardest for me, since I'm not used to speaking in front of people. The next talks went much better, I think. I hope to see video of those talks soon. It takes a little while to get used to speaking to a room full of people, to gain confidence. Also, I was really intimidated by my co-panelists - such amazing people who've done such great work.

There is value, though, in having someone like me who is just an ordinary person with a full-time job doing animal rights work in my spare time. Basically, anyone can do what I do. I hope that people can see that and that it empowers them to take more action in their own lives.