The one about meat or something, probably "or something"

So, have you ever snuggled with a pig? And no—before you make a very clever ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend joke—I mean the animal. The cute, innocent one with the flat nose.

The humble pig is probably the saddest, smartest, unluckiest creature in all of creation. Think about it: pigs are remarkably intelligent—smarter than cows, goats, sheep, and possibly your ex. They can even give dogs a respectable run for their money. And this very smart, rather adorable creature is made of bacon. Worse, it is probably just smart enough to figure out that it is about to die and be eaten.

See where I’m going with this?

Into depression.

And here comes the question: what if, instead of killing the pigs, we performed surgery on them, removed the tasty bits, stitched them back together, and kept them alive? This is the kind of question we all asked our dads at some point—and it is one hell of a question for Dad. Or am I just a special kind of psychopath? The answer, as is so often the case with questions children ask, is horror. Existential horror. The kind that has no end.

We all love bacon, and we’re all afraid of death. So when we sit in a restaurant and feed a beautiful girl, from our own fork, a piece of warm, perfectly cooked pig, death is the last thing on our minds. Or is it? Because it is quite fucking interesting how we murder these creatures, cook their bodies, and then offer pieces of them to one another as gestures of affection—as if exchanging hours of another creature’s life could somehow express the value of our own. And, if you have style like me, you accompany the offering with a sauce made from chocolate and brandy.

It is rather cute, in a psychopathic sort of way: “Here, taste the flesh, fear, and suffering of this creature—with all my love.” And if you are a reasonably decent human being, you occasionally think about that. Perhaps it is why you eat less meat than you used to. Perhaps you have imagined the pig’s final hours, frightened yourself with the details, and—just for a moment—found your way back to the surgery idea. Surely there must be a kinder way to get the bacon.

I know a surgeon. Great guy. Probably loves meat. So we put the piggy under, insert a couple of laparoscopic trocars, and extract, say, three ribs, a generous slab of bacon, some loin, a little butt, and a quantity of delicious fat via liposuction. Then we put the tastient in the ICU, wait for it to recover, and repeat the process. Of course, we ignore the months of excruciating pain and gruelling physical rehabilitation it would need just to get back on its sinful, cloven-but-non-cud-chewing hooves.

Congratulations. You have taken something as complicated as sacrificing animals for food and transformed it into a cycle of endless torture. Hell, you have invented a new circle of Hell and condemned innocent creatures to it. But that cannot be right, because only the guilty suffer in Hell. Do you know what condemns the innocent? War. You and I were merely looking for a kinder way to get bacon, and somehow we invented something worse than Hell. We invented something like war.

And now the question becomes: why? Are pigs sentient? Yes. Absolutely. Do they understand what we are doing to them? God, I hope not. In the end, what we really need to know is whether pigs go to Heaven. Because if they do, eating bacon is merely assisted salvation. And if they do not, we are monsters. Then again, if pigs go to Heaven, they must be virtuous creatures—which would make every pig behind every sausage you have ever eaten a martyr.

Damn. That got dark remarkably quickly for something that began with snuggling.

Is death horrible, or is it peaceful? Why do we consider death the worst possible thing right up until someone is beyond repair? Then, suddenly, we take solace in the idea that they have gone to a better place—a place where they no longer suffer and, perhaps more importantly, where we no longer have to witness their suffering, sit beside their hospital bed, or make all those uncomfortable visits. Death remains horrible until it begins to look merciful. Or convenient. Or until we really want bacon.

Ignoring death throughout our entire lives only to have it hit us over the head at the very end is stupid. It could be our death, the death of someone we love, or the death of that guy who was riding his motorcycle recklessly and was violently deconstructed in a fraction of a second. We are all going to die, and yet we spend our lives pretending otherwise. Why? Because if we accounted for death in everything we did—every journey, every relationship, every beautiful meal, every piece of warm pig offered from our fork—I think we would eventually stop doing anything at all.

It is very bleak, but it seems to be true: we are here because of an act of violence performed against us by those who swore they loved us while simultaneously sentencing us to death. Our lives perpetuate and propagate that violence. Even if we are vegan, even if we become Jains, we will still cause some suffering. Jainism is not exactly on the rise, so our collective suffering tally amounts to considerably more than “some.” Eventually, we become sick, and we too become meat to be disposed of.

In the all-you-can-eat buffet of suffering that is the world—where every mouth is a weapon and every stomach a tomb—the only consolation is that you will also die, join the cycle, and become food for worms, plants, and perhaps any Jeffrey Dahmer admirers in the house.

What does all of this mean? Don’t eat meat? Inflict as much suffering as you want while you can? Let’s fuck—the apocalypse is coming?

I have no idea.

Nature—or God—made it so that you have to fight to stay alive, and that means predation. We live because something else dies, and then we also die, and the cycle goes on into the future without paying attention to the screams of all those who suffer for even an instant.

So, let me leave you with this question: you can orgasm for a full hour, but you’re also made of delicious bacon. Are you ready to be a pig?

Thought so.

That’s all there is to it: pleasure versus death. You want more of one and as little of the other as you can possibly have. And you imagine death as cold and boring because life offers you pleasure?

Now, it’s Friday. Go gerbiling and enjoy life while it lasts or something.

Peace.