Often, it's nice to be around young children because their honesty and innocence are quite refreshing. They speak their truth without shame or guilt or doubt. They don't have the prejudices that we have because at that point, they haven't picked those up yet.
When my niece was a small child, she cried the first time she saw a fish cooked on a plate. Her young heart was full of compassion and she didn't understand why a once living being now lay lifeless. That's the kind of empathy that most if not all children innately possess; they see every being as a friend, not as an enemy; an equal, not as a resource; a person, not as a thing. These days, the personhood of fish is ignored. We think nothing of eating fish or fishing as a sport, because it is accepted as "normal", and yet all fish feel. When they are out of the water, it is a similar feeling to us drowning. When their flesh is hooked in the mouth, they experience pain. It's not a matter of opinion. Researchers were able to map out more than 20 pain receptors located in the mouth and head areas of fish. They, like us, wish to avoid pain, but our prejudices prevent us from seeing that clearly, or prevent us from feeling that their pain too is important. Perhaps it's time that we see the world through the compassionate eyes of a child, so we can remember what it is like to a be a friend of the universe.
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