I believe that everything is connected, and that genuine goodness creates more goodness. By this I don’t mean that only good things happen to “good people” or that good things and actions necessarily prevail in the world. I mean that when something is genuinely good, what that will produce will also be genuinely good. That’s why it has been so hard for me to promote an animal rights entity (group or individuals) to others in order to promote veganism; I see that most of them are not advocating for the rights of the victims while always taking their side uncompromisingly, and are not adequately sincere, altruistic, antispeciesist, and fair and respectful to everyone, just to say few of the most important things anyone who speaks on behalf of a victim should adhere to being by default. On the other hand, it has been so easy to promote Gentle World ever since I came across it, because as I see it, not only is it not afraid to speak the truth and do only what’s right, but that’s the only way it can be.
I recently heard that the website of Gentle World was set up in 2009, so I must have come across it soon after I became vegan in 2008. How I first came across it I am not really sure, but I do remember that I was looking for sources of clear, honest, antispeciesist, animal rights education that also promoted veganism as the most natural thing and the least we can do (I was not calling all that “vegan education” as I do now) and that was one of the very few sources I found after an extensive search. Thank goodness for that, as that meant I could have a vegan education source that would create true vegans, I could improve as a vegan and a person, and this also helped me greatly in being optimistic that creating a vegan world is possible up until today.
The essays of the Gentle World residents were like water that sprang from the rocks of Truth, and I knew that as long as there were people who perceived life and other animals this way, and consequently talked about justice in its true form, there was hope in this world for other animals. I have always associated Gentle World with feelings of justice, empathy, peacefulness, affinity for everyone and all nature, respect, dignity, integrity, solidarity, love, oneness with animals and nature, beauty, light, and even something from eternity. In other words, everything I regard as being most important in life.
Later, I came across some Gentle World residents online, whose “Gentle World dignity, honesty, and respect for all animals” unsurprisingly shone through their advocacy. Now, I feel like I had a glimpse into how humans in a vegan world will be some time after we all become vegan if we keep improving as humans.
At Gentle World, they don’t pretend that life is only happiness and good things. I believe they know well that, especially nowadays, life if full of suffering, and that is why Gentle World was created in the first place; but they are able to rise above it because they can see that what’s really important in life (empathy, justice, respect, love, equality, connection with animals – nonhuman and human – and nature) is what’s right and true, and can create a better world if only the ones who can and are in a position to do that decide to do it. They see this hope, they live it, they breathe it, and they want to give it to the rest of the world in order to heal it, by first of all ending the inconceivable harm we cause to our fellow travelers in life, the nonhuman animals, as a necessary first step and a moral minimum. They created Gentle World because they saw veganism as the door to enter a life of real values, and Gentle World was the realization of those values. Because it’s only after you are vegan that you can experience reverence for life and you can align your life along with it – and I believe that the people who created Gentle World were some of the first people who perceived it and fulfilled this truth in its purest form.
What more could we wish for this world, than to become a Gentle World world?
A world where doing the right thing is more important than doing the conventional thing.
A world where everyone will feel respected, no matter now different.
A world where all will feel safe from humans as well as with humans.
A world where we can look every living being in the eye and see ourselves as well as wonders.
A world where truth will be recognized and lived instead of fabricated and scorned.
A world where the world’s harmonies will he heard as well as lived.
A world restored to how it should have always been.
