Some people have got a crazy fucking idea about what sentience is. So sentience is defined as "awareness of self" eh? That's fucking stupid. As a race we've acquired this trait through the creation of language. It's not some magical thing, or evidence, in any way, shape or form, of superiority. It does not merit a parade through the cities of the world, screaming from the tallest skyscraper "we are greater than you (every other life-form). Indeed, awareness of self, within the context of my own reality-view and paradigm, is something of a curse, a failing if you will, because it removes us from our inherent knowing (spirit) state. It's a proverbial spanner in the works of the purity of doing. It complicates and convolutes. Yes indeedy, there is something inordinately pure and innocent and true in the mammals and swine of the animal kingdom, I see it especially in dogs and cats. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing.

No, sentience is fuck all to do with the brain -- no surprise then that the so-called intellects would confuse the issue as they're so deeply entrenched in the machinations of their brain-computer that they've lost almost all connection with their innate knowing (not to mention their fucking compassion) -- it's simply the vivid awareness of experiencing and feeling. That's it. Nothing else.

So, now that this has been substantiated you're probably all asking yourself "y r u torkin aboot dis draico?', to which in days gone by I would have ventured into a long ol' explanation that may very well have bored you to tears and/or urine patches. Fortunately I've moved on from this. I learnt my lesson playing the Soul Reaver series of games (man those long, drawn out cutscenes bored me to tears. Hello? Could you BE anymore pretentious or posturing-ey? Answer. No. You can't). But I digress: All this has basically come about through watching a documentary on meat production, and following on from that, a discussion with my muther about animal welfare and vegetarianism, and then me researching online the history of animal rights, and current welfare methods, and other wikipedia shit, etc.

I want to point this out right from the get-go: I'm not a vegetarian because I want the tag. I don't do tags; I don't describe myself and limit myself within a box. I'm not new age. I'm not religious, I'm not sane, I'm not a chicken chaser, I'm not a guy with a glory-hole for a face -- I'm fluidic, unlimited and cooler than a cucumber jammed up a penguin's anus (or so I like to think). The closest I ever got to categorizing myself was as a "nu-shaman", and even then that was half-ironic, and used principally because it sounded cool. So yes, vegetarian? Nadda.

There were numorous reasons underpinning my shift to vegetarianism, the main ones being the suffering of the animals, and the maintaining of my 'light state' of being. I'll ignore the latter for this entry as explaining it is irrelevant in this context, though it is and remains important to me. The former though needs explaining because we cannot consider ourselves civilized as a race while we continue to breed sentient creatures for entirely the purposes of our selfish needs. These animals live an unnatural, meaningless life, where each day is the same and their environment utterly bereft of beauty and purpose. It is beyond reproach. Disgusting even. If a similar thing were done to us -- think an advanced alien race coming to our planet, enslaving us and chaining us up in large pens, to be used as food -- we would view such beings as evil. How are we any different?

So yes (brace yourself!): I've decided to eat free range chicken. This isn't solely a selfish decision, it really isn't (I confess, however, that I do love the taste of chicken). It's the realization that the use of animals as produce will not disappear overnight. It requires the world's majority to make a conscious shift from eating any meat product, to free range only. Free range, for those who don't know, is where the animals have some semblance of a life; they roam (relatively) free on land, with the sun on their faces, feet on the Earth's floor. It isn't ideal, obviously, but it's a start. Perhaps if more vegetarians reflected on this matter in greater detail, they too would jump, as I have done, from not eating meat, to eating only free range. Supply and demand, people; supply and demand.

Tomorrow: chicken. Chicken without a bad aftertaste -- that is to say, I won't feel bad eating it. Toodle pip!