You’re about to undertake a significant emotional investment.  With some perseverance, huge wins lay ahead, in terms of your personal satisfaction and fulfillment.  But it won’t be without cost – that part I can guarantee up front. 

Soon after I became active in promoting the welfare of cetaceans, I became aware that in this ‘business’, it’s quite normal to feel significant emotional distress from much of the content your attention is drawn to every day.  The phrase ‘having the shit kicked out of you’ certainly came to mind early on.  The scale of the problem seems much too big for one person (it is, in fact).  And the truth is that the losses clearly outnumber the wins.  

As time passed, I came to realize that it’s actually worse than that.  What happens as you see the events of the day scrolling past you on social media, is that you have your heart utterly broken with amazing frequency.  The things that some of our fellow humans do to other creatures is absolutely surprising and shocking for its disconnect from anything resembling empathy.  And for its level of cruelty.  Oftentimes clearly driven by economics, keeping costs down at the price of another creature’s pain.  All too often, it seems to be not even that, just sadism for its own sake.  Inflicting pain on another because its torment provides some kind of reward – a demented view of life which is indecipherable to most of us but not, unfortunately, even close to ALL of us.  

I’m talking about what happens to whales and dolphins, of course, which is where my attention is focused on a daily basis, but also to cattle, to dogs, to elephants, and on and on.  I’ve shed tears more than once on my drive home, alone in my car and away from the eyes of my colleagues, and the need to get a job done at the office.  I suspect that I’m far from the only one who’s experienced this.  

But here’s the thing.  These instances are so hurtful to us only because we have such a solid frame of reference to compare them to.  

Here in Canada, and in much of the world in the early 21^st-century, we know what compassion looks like.  We experience how goods things are when we treat others, not only of our own species, with kindness.  If this were not so, the world would be harsh, undeniably, but we would lack the ability to see it as so.  The ugliness has enormous power to hurt us only because we are so familiar with beauty.  This I believe unreservedly.   I hope it will always be what I’ve kept in reserve for when the inevitable moments of despair arrive.

The side that is in the right, that is to say, whose position is most in accord with the facts of reality, will be the side that ultimately prevails – unless they default to inaction.  That’s another way of saying that as long as they stay in the fight, the good guys win.

This is why we remain committed, above all else, to learning what is true, and to follow the facts regardless of inconvenience.  This is the only way to arrive at a just place.  It will mean having your heart broken many times, but it will be worth it.

We all will develop our own methods and mechanisms to cope with these emotional challenges.  For me, this is how it’s done.

Also, I believe that our tears don’t make us weaker, but that our ability to feel can make us stronger.   Much stronger.  Finally, let me offer a piece of advise that I think will apply to you – my colleagues in spirit, my activist friends – regardless of what methods and mechanisms you use.  Perhaps the best way to ward off a sadness that can become all-encompassing is to remember that you are a part of a much bigger whole, and karma is a very real thing in that life is an infinite number of feedback loops.  Perform those random acts of kindness for others you encounter in your daily life.  And maybe remember to include one or two little acts of kindness for yourself.

Anna, Canadian Cetacean Alliance